Handley Page Halifaxes LL178 & EB181

Handley Page Halifaxes LL178 and EB181

Kepwick Moor/Arden Great Moor  an area of the North Yorkshire Moors  with a number of Handley Page Halifax crashes within quite a close proximity . 
In the shot above can be seen a cross placed   to commemerate the loss of LL178 . 

Many experts have searched the area of the moor here and concluded that this is actually the crash site of EB181  . There is though no trace now on the surface . It is claimed that fragments of wreckage are combined at the real LL178 crash location . That may or may not be the case , whilst it is reletively close it is still far enough away to make it an imposition to move wreckge to that location . With a number of nearer old quarry workings closer by it would have made more sense to dump fragments in those .
 Anyway , This is a shot of a memorial to LL178 and is at the alleged  site of  the EB181 crash  .

In the distance can be seen the private woods of Arden Hall , another Halifax (JD174) carrying a bomb load crashed into those woods  . Aircraft crash enthusiasts are not welcome there due to some dubious behavior from over zealous wreckage collectors in the past . 

EB181 crashed in poor visibility from simply being not high enough , two crewmen initially survived the crash , one dying later from his injuries leaving a sole survivor .
The men who died were 


F/O Raymond H. Highsted     Pilot
Sgt John C. Mitchell       Navigator
Sgt Frederick J. Luckett    Bomb Aimer
F/Sgt John J. Timmins    Flt Engineer
Sgt James Nelson    Air Gunner
Sgt Herbert P. Durtnall Charlton    Air Gunner (died later of his injuries, 9.10.43) .

The man who survived 
 Sgt Charles F. West    Wirless Operator / Air Gunner


They were flying on a cross country exercise from RAF Croft . the aircraft hit the hill on the return leg to the airfield just after midnight at the start of a new day 28th September 1943.
The aircraft did not burn and must have remained largely intact or surely there would have been more fragments still in location on the moor .

Conversely , evidence of LL178's crash site is very obvious  .

Contents of a pit of collected wreckage

On the 18th March 1944 this aircraft flew on a 'Gardening' mission  over the North Sea towards the  archipelago of Heligoland .  On its return to RAF Croft the aircraft descended into the hill. They were literally moments from clearing the hill and would have been home and safe .That was not to be though , the impact was with great force evidenced by smashed castings and wrinkled panels still at the site today . 
The impact was also followed by a fire which must have destroyed much of the aircraft wreckage . 
All on board LL178 died . All of the crew were of the RCAF.
They were 

 

F/O David C. Evans	Pilot
P/O Douglas A. Thicke	2nd Pilot
P/O Geoffrey Hutt	Flt.Engineer
F/O Edson G. Armour	Navigator
P/O Donald E Jackson	Bomb Aimer
Sgt. Walter Cotton	Wireless Op. / Air Gunner
P/O .Joseph S. Sleigher	Air Gunner
P/O Robert E. Ballentine	Air Gunner

  
Pilot Officer Thicke was working upto his own aircraft and was on his second dicky flight . Had he survived he would probaly have been flying his own aircraft and crew on missions , perhaps even the following night . 
Gardening was the coloquelism refering to laying mines in the  German sealanes,   gardening because the RAF used vegetables as codewords for  sea areas !

Two areas of burnt ground containing wreckage can be seen at the LL178 crash site . 
In the picture to the left Al and Ian can be seen in the distance stood in the larger of the two areas .
A number of pieces of wreckage contain part numbers . 
and at least one has a manufacterers mark . 
The fuselage of the aircraft must have burnt in the larger burn area because on the surface can be seen many exploded bullet casings . Most .303 bullets of the era carry a date stamp on the base ....the ones I  looked at here were either dated 1942 , 1943 , 42 , 43 or   even a couple not dated at all ! Something I had not seen at a crash site before, no date on a bullet  . 
 A 1944 dated bullet would have confirmed that it came from LL178 not EB181 of course . 
There was no more luck with the Makers mark .... R2 , seen below faintly within a partial circle  on the left of shot  led me to a dead end as well .

  R2 refers to Rootes Motors (later Rootes Securities ) who built 1070 of the 6100+ Halifaxes built ......unfortunately EB181 was also built by the same company in an earlier batch of a hundred Halifaxes . LL178 itself  was built in a batch of 480 (not all mk V's) .
The B43 ....the B means its a part of the wing or flaps , the number is the part number itself,  odd (and 43 is odd) means port , so this is part of the port wing . 
The 57 prefix on the part number refers to this being a part for an  Halifax .  Handley Page coded their aircraft with H.P. followed by a number . The first Halifax post development was coded H.P. 57 , LL178 was a Mk.V , they were coded H.P.63 but the parts were largely  the same and thus they continued to be prefixed with a 57.  This is my understanding of how it worked ...if someone can make this complexity clearer to me please do so .

bullet casing dated 43

Ian and Al discussing the site

Some form of radio? still remains in fragmentary  condition at the site 

The stone plaque memorial made and placed by David Morris at the true location of the crash site . 

This site is a very interesting one and perhaps has some of the most comprehensive accounts available on the internet .   

The two stand out offerings are from Richard Allonby   http://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/planes/44/ll178.htm
and http://rcaf434squadron.squarespace.com/51-60/ where a mass of information can be found including pictures of the crew and P/O Evans  logbook . 
There is enough there to write a book about the crews experiences   , perhaps one of them should do so .

My own take is more of a  swift resume and hopefully will cover the main points along with a few musings from myself.