Number 431 (Iroquois) Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, formed at Burn in Yorkshire in November 1942, as a bomber squadron of No: 4 Group. In July 1943, it was transferred to No 6 Group Royal Canadian Air Force and moved to Tholthorpe. The squadron was equipped with four-engined Halifaxes and the squadron’s badge was an Iroquois Indian's head.

Tholthorpe airfield had been allocated to the Canadians, and when it re-opened in June 1943 it was part of No 6 Group. The first occupants were No 434 (Bluenose) Squadron RCAF, which formed at Tholthorpe. Followed quickly by 431 Squadron who began to work-up to operations with their Halifax bombers.

One of them being Halifax LK 640 Q for Queenie, which soon sported a racy picture of Queenie on its nose; as one can see in the photograph below.

Queenie was a mighty beast with a proud crew, but she was very temperamental. "It was the Gremlins," said the ground crew.

The engines would be fine, then for no apparent reason they would not be running right. Many times the ground crew worked on the engines only to find nothing wrong.

Each time operations were on, the Gremlins would start to work on Queenie. And the ground crew would get very frustrated, for Queenie was a new aircraft and they could never find anything wrong.

Was it the task that it had to perform that caused the Gremlins to take over ... or was it the Restless Spirits? ...

The rest of this story along with other interesting, chilling and thought provoking true stories can be found in the book Ghost Stations™ Yorkshire

This story has been specially formatted for the GhostStations.com Website and is intended to only serve as an example of the stories that are in the Ghost Stations books.

Published by: L'AQUILA (ANZIO Group)       Price: £9.95 each

202 pages and around 71 Photographs/Illustrations

ISBN-13: 978-1-871448-05-4