Halifax LW334

Halifax LW334

Lousy weather for the anniversary  visit

 On the 18th January 1944 , whilst on a cross country navigation training  flight from RAF Topcliffe , this aircraft crashed into the flanks of Black Hambleton hill near the small village of Osmotherly in  North Yorkshire .
Unfortunately the 6 man crew were all killed in the crash .







The crew who were all Canadians were

F/O Joseph  P.  Lavallee    Pilot
Sgt. Richard G. Kimball    Navigator
F/O Wilfred L. Boisvert     Flt. Engineer
F/O Walter Phillips             Bomb Aimer
W/O George E. Giff           W/Operator
Sgt. Guy H. Hivon             Air Gunner

One of the holes into which the wreckage was originally discarded

The visit this day was on the anniversary of the crash . This has been performed for many years (18 ,i think ) Rain, snow, hail or shine  since David  Thompson (2nd from the left in the last shot) first placed the memorial .
This day I joined them  for the first time .
The weather matched the conditions of the day of the crash . Wet with low visibility! 

The memorial with this days new wreath attached

A motley crew of like minded individuals

This shot gets even motlier as yours enters the scene

A few weeks later i revisited the site with my mates Ian and Al . The weather was much better and we had time to have a good look at the site . We came up with a few interesting surmises ...purely speculative of course but still !

There appears to be 4 areas of disturbed ground at what we would like to think is the impact site . These seem, on a rough  measure , to be spaced at the same intervals as the engines would be on a Halifax . The four 'pits' all contained water when we visited but all four have the downslope side edge at feet level and the upslope side edge above knee level . This seemed to us as representative of something heavy driving itself into the hillside . Small fragments of wreckage found within these 'pits' seem to be small bits of engine casing .

On top of that the right hand wing 'pits' seem a little deeper and better defined than the left hand , if this means that the aircraft hit at a slight angle, right wing down, it would have caused the aircraft to spin around slightly as it broke up on impact . Much glass and perspex some of which was very clearly from the nose of the Halifax is located off to the right uphill just a few metres before the memorial itself .  The claim for these pits was the location the wreckage was buried , this may well  still be the case but the crash scenario  could also be true as well . 
All pure speculation ,but it is a very emotive location and worthy of some thought .

Right hand inner if we were right ....and its a big IF :-)

the memorial on a sunny day