WW2 deaths in plane crashes: Peter Gordon McDonald, Colin Stewart Guttridge and Robert Alexander Dalrymple Smith

Peter Gordon McDonald

Peter Gordon McDonald was born on 26th November 1924 at 1065 Maryhill Road. 

Maryhill Road runs from top left to bottom right, red circle shows 1065.

His father, Peter, was a glazier and had married Margaret Murdoch Breckenridge in Kilmarnock in 1915.

His link to Bearsden is not certain but Mrs Margaret M MacDonald is recorded as the proprietrix of 27 Borland Drive, Kessington, in the 1940 Valuation Roll.

Peter (on the War Memorial he is named as Gordon) joined the RAFVR and was in flight training based at Rufforth, Yorkshire, with 1663 Heavy Conversion Unit.

On 7th February 1944 he was an air gunner in a Halifax V, an older bomber aircraft mainly used for training on a daytime cross-country exercise.  In low cloud, the plane hit high ground at Garrowby Hill, 6 miles east of Stamford Bridge.  The plane’s momentum carried it on across a road where it hit a milk lorry, killing the driver.  It then caught fire and six of the seven crew died at the scene.

This is the memorial erected on the site in 1996.

This website shows the others who died.

Peter was buried in the Western Necropolis, Glasgow, which is by Lambhill, to the west of Balmore Road.



Colin Stewart Guttridge

Note for others researching this man: in different records the surname is spelled Gutteridge and Guthridge, and his father's first name is spelled Quintin, Quinton and Quinten.  I have used Guttridge because this matches his father's signature on Colin's birth record.

Colin was born on 25th March 1924, possibly making him the youngest person on the Bearsden war memorial.  His father was Quintin Joseph Guttridge (1879-1950) and his mother Dorothy Wild (1888-1948), married in 1923.  At the time they lived at 157 Broomhill Drive (the handwriting on the Birth Record is poor, I have taken this from the Valuation Roll).  They had at least one other child, Pamela, born in 1929.

157 Broomhill Drive is close to the junction with Crow Road

The family also lived at 40 Gibson Street in the west end of Glasgow around 1935 but by 1940 had moved to 6 Beech Avenue in Bearsden.  

Colin joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and had completed his basic training so he was sent to Canada to finish his flight training.  Over 100 airfields had been constructed in that country for this purpose.  He was a Sergeant in the 39 Service Flight Training School of the Royal Canadian Air Force, based in Swift Current, Saskatchewan.

On 24th November 1943, while flying an Oxford II training aircraft with his instructor, Sergeant Edward (Teddy) Sowery, the plane stalled from a turn at low altitude and spun into the ground 6 miles north of Rush Lake.  Both men were killed.  Edward Sowery was 21 and from Blackpool.

Colin and Edward are buried in the cemetery at Swift Current (Mount Pleasant), Canada.

Photo credit: Douglas and Gladys Hay

The airfield still exists with many of the original WW2 buildings remaining (link, see also Wikipedia entry).


Robert Alexander Dalrymple Smith

Robert was born in 1915, although tracking a record of this has not been possible.  His parents were Alexander Dalrymple Smith and Ann McLennan Smith.

Robert was a chartered accountant prior to joining the RAF where he was posted to a maintenance unit (various accounts say the 12th and 18th).

On 25th July 1940 he was the pilot of a Beaufort aircraft being transferred between airfields in the Dumfries area.  While flying an engine caught fire and he attempted an emergency landing but undershot.  The plane hit a wall and in the crash Robert was killed.

The address that links him to Bearsden is 19 Cameron Drive, Killermont.

He is buried in New Kilpatrick Cemetery.




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