A WARTIME driver who took a Canadian Air Force crew to a doomed Lancaster bomber, which crashed, killing them all, has shed more light on the tragedy.

The crash at Sands Farm near Sedgefield, on November 24, 1944, was featured in The Northern Echo on Saturday after local man John Boyes appealed for more information about the incident, which has haunted him since he was four.

The Northern Echo has been inundated with calls from people wanting to share their memories of the incident, but perhaps the best insight into the crash has come from Jean Green, 78, from Bishop Auckland.

Mrs Green was a WAAF driver at Middleton St George during the war.

She drove the Canadian Air Force crew to the plane, before it took off on that fatal training exercise.

When the call came in that the plane had crashed, she was among the people who responded.

"I drove there in a jeep, I couldn't drive fast enough, we hurtled through on the roads," she said.

"When we got there I had to stay in the jeep, but the plane was still blazing and the whole sky was lit up.

"The armoury officer was very concerned because of the bomb dump at Bradbury.

"He said that if they didn't get the fire under control and the Bradbury bomb dump went up, there wouldn't be any of Sedgefield left."

Mrs Green was sent back to Middleton St George to get a troop carrier vehicle to take the bodies to the morgue. Only six of the seven-strong crew were recovered.

She said that was a particularly poignant job for her. "I remember joking and larking with them when I took them to the plane before they took off.

"When I got back with the lorry, stretchers and flags, they opened the gates and I was allowed on to the site. They brought the six bodies, covered with the flags and put them in the vehicle.

"I then had to take them to the morgue and I cried all the way back. They were lovely boys. I got 24 hours leave after that and I went home to bed and just slept.

"It wasn't the only tragedy during the war, but it's the one that sticks in my mind. They were very brave lads."

Records show that a faulty fuel jettison system caused the crash.

The seven crew members were all Canadian, except the rear gunner, 19-year-old J J Murphy, who was American.

The pilot, 27-year-old R G Mansfield, had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

The others were navigator G H Warren-Darley, air bomber A C Hirst, 22, wireless operator D A Gunn, 20, flight engineer D G Newland and second gunner L W Toth, 27.

Recalling another anecdote, Mrs Green said: "They used to take the lads out training and they would be laughing and joking, but when you went to get them in again afterwards, they couldn't see out of their eyes, their faces would be so black.

"They would be so tired they would be trailing their feet, but you never heard them complain."

After the war Mrs Green, who lives in Bishop Auckland, joined the Mechanised Transport Corps, before going on to become a teacher.

She became headteacher at Cockton Hill Infants School, in Bishop Auckland, before retiring.