Frederick James Bassett

Having joined the RAF Fred Bassett was assigned to 302 Flying Training Unit operating from RAF Oban.

On the evening of 12th May 1944 Catalina JX273 and its nine crew took off on a night training exercise.

Fred Bassett was the Wireless Operator/ Air Gunner under the command of pilot David Clyne, a successful footballer in the Scottish League before the war. The intended route was via Barra Head. However, the aircraft was flying well off-course, realising the navigational error, the pilot endeavoured to gain height but when he had reached about 213m (700ft), the Catalina crashed into the side of Heishavel Beag on the island of Vatersay killing 3 crew including Fred Bassett

RAF recovery teams later broke up the plane and salvaged the engines but much of the wreckage remains intact to this day.

A memorial has been erected close to the crash site but it interestingly gives Fred’s initials incorrectly.

Fred Bassett is buried in Leominster’s Moravian Burial Ground, his wife Nora was buried alongside him in 1994.

The Explorer Scouts have established an annual tradition of quietly paying their repects to Fred Bassett immidiately after the annual Remembrance Sunday Parade. The Moravian faith does not embrace elaborate ceremonies and is strictly non militaristic, to this end a paricular point is made of leaving the standards outside of the burial ground, no poppies or standing to alert, it is a simple reflection with 9 pebbles placed in the gone home symbol.