On the night of 4-5 May 1943, the heavily loaded Lancaster bomber W4888 lifted off from Holme-on-Spalding Moor to bomb Dortmund. While en route over the IJsselmeer, this aircraft was intercepted by a German fighter plane and caught fire.
This made the chance very small that the Lancaster would still reach England. The captain of Flying Officer Nicholas J. Stanford maneuvered the burning aircraft back to the Frisian coastline in order to make an emergency landing on the mainland. Near the farm 'Sathe Westerein' of the Dijkstra family on the Alde Dyk, the tailpiece of the aircraft broke.
The rear gunner John M. Hadfield fell from the aircraft. The bomber was now ablaze and crashed at 01:40 am in the fields between two farms on the Alde Dyk. The other five crew members were killed. They were buried at the General Cemetery on the Spoardyk in Workum. Navigator Ralph Duncan Paterson managed to parachute out of the burning Lancaster through the escape hatch on the underside of the hull. He was taken prisoner of war by the Germans, after the capitulation in May 1945, Paterson returned to England. John Hadfield was found a few days later and buried afterwards.
