Wilfred Newey was a passenger in an Avro York C1 RAF transport aircraft [MW116] of 511 Squadron that crashed into the sea at 19:34 hrs on Thursday 1^st February 1945 and broke up during an attempted ditching off Lampedusa Island in the Mediterranean.

Yalta Conference, Crimea - preparatory support

This aircraft was one of the support aircraft carrying staff and other personnel involved in the upcoming Yalta Conference [4^th/11^th February 1945]. The aim of the conference, attended by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, was to make important decisions regarding the future progress of the latter stages of the war in Europe and the postwar world.

An explanation of the loss of the aircraft carrying Government officials to the Yalta conference was given by the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, to the House of Commons.

He said that the party was to have flown in a Liberator, but one of its engines developed a fault just before take-off, and as the trouble could not be remedied quickly they changed over to the York aircraft, [civil adaption of the Lancaster bomber] being the only other long-range aircraft immediately available. The crew, though experienced individually, had never previously flown together, but the occasion was urgent and the weather forecast good.

Near Naples the weather broke, and the pilot decided to go on to Malta, but owing to radio distortion there was an error in navigation and they arrived over Lampedusa. After circling for an hour in darkness the pilot obtained a correct bearing, but then had insufficient fuel to reach Malta, 85 miles away and so elected to bring the aircraft down on the sea.

Of the nineteen occupants on board fifteen souls were lost. The youngest to die, on what was her 23rd birthday, was Patricia Maxwell Sullivan, a Secretary from the Foreign Office in London. All who perished were later recovered. Wilfred [aged 38] was the highest ranking OW to be killed in the war. They were buried at Imtarfa Military Cemetery on the island of Malta.

A memorial service in their name was held at St Margaret's, Westminster on 11^th April 1945.

Husband of Marjorie Newey of Welford-on-Avon, Warwickshire: son of James George Newey & Ouida Ethel Newey.

A copy of Wilfred's story is available for download here.

See also the Commonwealth War Graves Commission permanent digital memorial, ‘Evermore: Stories of the fallen’ :-
Lieut-Colonel Wilfred George NEWEY