FAIREY BARRACUDA DR306

On 15th December 1945 whilst on a cross country navigational exercise flying out of RNAS Rattray in Scotland, Pilot Officer J.R. Crevier had a fortunate escape when he crashed into the flank of Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales. With only minor injuries he managed to walk off the hillside unaided.

What now remains of the wreckage is now scattered through reeds and long grass.

Some very easy to find items are located in the wall below the impact point.

Impact point

Gloster Meteors WH383 & WH384

Gloster Meteors WH383 & WH384

On the 14th November 1953 Meteors WH383 and WH384 flying in close formation but far too low for the area in cloud crashed into Scholes Heights .
Part of  No.610 Squadron they were flying out of Hooton Park on a training exercise .
The pilots it seems were descending when they hit the hillside demolishing a dry stone wall . Two sections of wall were knocked down by the aircraft seperated by a mere 12 feet in distance . It was definately close formation flying .
 We found wreckage associated to both missing  wall sections.
Behind the wall today can be made out to shallow craters where presumably the aircraft disintegrated and wreckage was flung far and wide across the moor .

Both pilots were killed.
They were

F/Lt. Anthony Basil Mercer  flying WH384
and
F/O Arthur Micheal Fletcher
flying WH383

F/Lt Mercer was a local lad and would have been around when an aircraft crashed into the street  where he lived in  Bolton .
    Despite reports that no wreckage exists at this site we found quite a lot scattered  in the deep grasses of the moor  . We have now collected these aircraft fragments to create a pool of wreckage which hopefully will remain to mark the spot these airmen met their end . Seek and ye shall find !

Something missed by the magpies ?! along with a lot of bits they usually leave 

al 

Handley Page Halifax BB310

Handley Page Halifax BB310

The view from the still visible impact crater amongst the scree . Small pieces of wreckage can still be seen deep amongst the rocks. The view indicates the probable line of flight of the aircraft prior to the crash .

The memorial just next to the impact point

On the 12th April 1944 Halifax BB310 crashed into Blea Crag on Great Dun Fell in the North Pennines . The crew were in their 8th hour of a training flight . They were flying out of RAF Longtown in Cumbria from 1674 HCU which provided crews for Coastal Command . Indeed BB310  had been a Coastal Command aircraft with 502 Squadron prior to being used for training purposes . It was built by LAPG  as a MkII Series 1 between November 1942 and January 1943 . It was a 'Special' which meant it was fitted with a Mk3 ASV radar and it could have had its armament uprated too to offset the change in the German submarines tactics of attempting to shoot attacking aircraft out of the sky instead of diving .
The aircraft exploded upon impacting the fell ,creating a still visible crater within the large scree rocks . The entire crew were killed , probaly instantly .
They were:

F/O Paul B. Stevens RCAF, pilot
F/O Sydney Brookes RAFVR, second pilot
Flt Sgt William ''Alan'' Johnson RAFVR DFM, wireless op / air gunner
Flt Sgt Frank Pess RCAF, wireless op / air gunner
Flt Sgt Harold S. Seabrook RCAF, wireless op / air gunner
Sgt Robert J. Littlefield RAFVR, flight engineer
Sgt William J.  Morrison RAFVR, navigator
Sgt Hugh Dunningham RAFVR, wireless op / air gunner
Sgt Dean W.  Swedberg RCAF, wireless op / air gunner

F/O Stevens whilst part of the Royal Canadian Air Force was  actually an American rather than  a Canadian .
Our visit this day was on the 70th anniversay of the crash . The weather was dreadful but cleared long enough whilst we were at the crash site for me to take a few pictures .

The plaque placed as a memorial in 1994

Paint still adorns this fragment

small fragments some showing signs of an intense fire

Gloster Javelin XA662

Gloster Javelin XA662

Ian giving some scale to the remaining wreckage , this large part is the exhaust pipe

Tons of wreckage at this crash site , and nobody died in this one thanks to ejector seat technology .

The wreckage is spread in quite a wide arc across the moor . Close to a number of grouse butts, we were quite suprised at the amount remaining at this site with such reletively easy access.
The crash took place on 29th September 1959 .
An engine caught fire close to RAF Leeming and in the 30 miles between here and there ,both engines failed and the two man crew ejected . Survival of this crash would have been unlikely judging by the condition of the wreckage .
The Pilot was
Student pilot F/O C.P. Cowper
the Navigator and trainer
Capt. Robert E. Nietz (USAF)

Its located on East Bolton Moor , above Castle Bolton in the Yorkshire Dales .

In 1942 a Captain Valentine Baker was killed testing a prototype aircraft , his business partner Sir James Martin ,greatly upset by his death , came up with the idea of forcibly removing the pilot from an aircraft doomed to crash . By 1945 static ejections had been achieved . 1946 brought the first in flight trial ejections all of which were successful. The system began being introduced into aircraft from then on . The first real ejection came on the 30th May 1949 . The pilot Jo Lancaster had his life saved . The company ,still going strong today proudly boasts the number of lives saved as being 7439 at the time of me writing this short account . An incredibly large  number !

 Here can be seen one of  the tyres still on site  from XA662 , below can be seen the same section of tyre from the Javelin at Yorkshire Air Museum XH767 .

It doesnt look in a great deal better condition than the one thats been in a crash and out on the moor these past 55 years .

Javelin XH767 at YAM

De Havilland Mosquito TA525

De Havilland Mosquito TA525

On the 14th February 1946 this aircraft crashed into the fellside above Castle Bolton in the Yorkshire Dales.Flying out of RAF Middleton St George on a solo training exercise the pilot crashed in cloud .
The pilot, it has been alleged, was ordered to climb by air traffic control ,he failed to do this and the result can now be seen piled in a depression on the fellside.
The pilot who was a member of the Dutch Navy was killed

Sgt Gebines La Hei RAFVR

A tragic incident so soon after the wars end.

 There is more wreckage to be found hidden away in a pothole near by .

Hawker Hurricane PG472

Hawker Hurricane PG472

 On the 2nd February 1945 flying  out of RAF Calverley in Cheshire on a training flight , this aircraft was involved in a collision with another hurricane (PZ848) . Both aircraft plummeted to the ground killing the pilots  . 

The pilots were 

Flt.Sgt. Thomas S. Taylor  PG472 
and 
W/O Norman Thomas Huckle PZ848

PZ848 is located on nearby farmland . LAIT  excavated the sites a few years ago and took much wreckage from them . That said it is good to see wreckage at this one , hurricane wreckage is thin on the ground so to speak !

Miles Master DL981

Miles Master DL981

The  rebuilt section of wall the aircraft demolished  as it crashed , the fragments we found are in this field

Flying out of Leaconfield   to Squires Gate Blackpool  on the 16th September 1949, crashed  and burst into flames. It appears that the pilot may have been trying to land , but the cloud was low so he could just have become disorientated.

Pilot Reginald B. Price
Flying Officer Sydney I. Rowe
Both were killed in the crash .

They came down 100 yards from the The Pack Horse Inn at Widdop . Clipping the top of the wall on one side of the road , demolishing a section of wall on the other side before coming to rest in an adjacent moor/field .


We have heard rumour that the aircrafts engine amongst other parts  is still in the area ...somewhere !
Perhaps buried ,perhaps in a barn or even rolled down off the ridge , who knows ?

Looking towards the pub with the rebuilt wall

Fragments we found , the jury is out on the tube like piece but the rest are definately aircraft .  We only did a short search but with documentary evidence and a few finds , the location of the crash site is confirmed .

Avro Anson N4919

Avro Anson N4919

Pictured here with the crags in the background are the few remaining scraps of wreckage , including two wing front edges. 

 This aircraft crashed on Wolf Hole Crag in the Forest of Bowland on 9th February 1944.

Flying out of Millom the pilot , Flight Seargent Dobson , had little choice but to descend due to icing up of the wings , realising he was over high ground he attempted and succeeded in a forced landing . All of the 5 crew members survived .

This crash site is a fair old trek out into the middle of nowhere , and once there the wreckage took some finding . So much so , that I only found it just as I gave up looking and started to return back to the car. I had scoured over 100s of metres of ground and looked through the Rocks in search of the wreckage and found nothing at all.
It was almost a very frustrating trip out , but turned out to be a good one in the end !

This location is at SD 6293 5771 as much as   80m from the only given location  that I had .
Not having a Sat Nav I confirmed this location by pacing on a compass bearing, North, to a wall that was only 50 paces away  and then another 18 paces  along the wall  to a turn so depending on the OS map accuracy I am fairly sure of this location . I am not gonna be far out over such a short distance  and am certain anyone using this 8 figure  GR will have no problem finding the wreckage for as long as it remains in this location. 

Below, my sticks mark the exact GR I had in relation to this site . I could find nothing visible at all , despite over an hour of searching in a grid pattern from this point .
I did though eventually find the wreckage pool , if not the impact point , a long long way away .
This point , the sticks , GR ....SD 630577
 I was on my own today , Ian would like this place , its the middle nowhere surrounded by mile upon mile of featurless moor !

Curtiss Tomahawk AH744

Curtiss Tomahawk AH744

Ian walking past a pit probaly used to bury the wreckage ...the magpies have been busy , as usual !

On the 10th February 1943 on the slopes of Little Dodd in County Durham this aircraft crashed in low cloud on a training exercise flying out of Catterick .
The 29 year old pilot was a relative novice . It was three days before the wreckage was found on this bleak desolate moor.
The pilot who was killed was 

P/O Harry Emmerson Wright

He is buried at Catterick.

This aircraft was part of a batch intended for France in 1940 , but before they could be delivered France fell to the Nazis . The British agreed to take over the order but the Tomahawk proved a poor fighter in the European theatre , so was reduced to being used as a training aircraft .This squadron was used in conjunction with Anti aircraft defence training .
It had poor armament , no self sealing fuel tanks , no armour plate or armoured glass to protect the pilot and was deemed unsuitable to fight  German aircraft.

The aircraft must have cartwheeled across the moor for the wrecakge is spread along a narrow axis  for quite a distance .

Some interesting wreckage remains on the moor , part of the cockpit floor , a wing part which includes the openings for loading the guns and some wiring amongst the usual assortment of scraps 

wing section with gun loading openings

Wing section salvaged from the site now held at North East Aircraft Museum , this is a shot from their website

.

 upper wing section  , this could be the bit next to the fuselage that remains on site and may link up to the bit at NEAM

Meteor WD778

Gloster Meteor WD778

 

A meteor similar to the one that crashed

On the 24th March 1954 this aircraft flying out of RAF Leeming crashed into a plateau just beneath the summit of Knock Fell    in Cumbria .  

The crew were known to be on their way back to Leeming . The last radio contact with them occured whilst they were only 5 miles from the airfield . Low cloud obscured the ground and the pilot was instructed to use the Ground Controlled Approach frequency to enable a safe landing .

Nothing  further was seen or heard  of the aircraft until 5 days later when it was discovered by a local gamekeeper . 

It seems that for some reason the radio must have ceased to function properly , the crew must have become disorientated in the cloud and ended up flying too far to the  west , perhaps realisng the mistake they set an easterly course unfortunately hitting the flanks of the pennine hill which lay between them and the base .

Both the 21yearold  crewmen were killed in the crash . 

They were 

P/O John David Briggs  Pilot

F/O  Derrick Walker  Nav/ R.Op.

An overview of the site

A sad footnote to the visit is that some major items have recently been stolen from the site . There are pictures readily available on the internet that show a huge wing section and two whole fan blade hub complete with blades from the engine were there in June 2013 but now in November have gone . 

Due to very clear tracks  it was clear that a large  ATV  had recently visited the site , perhaps this was the method of wreckage removal too .

The site is reletively easy to visit , the Pennine Way passes close by and a metalled road leading up to a radar installation is only just on the other side of the hill.

Halifax DK116

Halifax DK116

The code letters of the aircaft can be seen stamped into this valve

 On the 15th October 1944 whilst flying out of RAF Sandtoft near Scunthorpe on a cross country navigation exercise an engine of this Handley Page Halifax  caught fire .
The crew were instructed to bail out by the pilot , unfortunately only 3 of them managed to get out before the aircraft plunged into Glendhu Hill at Kielder .


There is much speculation that those who remained on board were trying to free the rear gunner who it is alleged was trapped .

This though seems just one possible explanation of many . It could equally be that the pilot thought everyone had bailed and decided it was time for himself to attempt to bail the aircraft could have gone into a dive as he left the controls resulting in centrafugal forces preventing any of the remainding crew from escaping ...it is unlikely that the absolute truth will ever be known . 

The men who died in the crash were

 P/O Herbert George Haddrell   Pilot
 Sgt John Neilson   Flt.Eng
 W/O Maurice Fredrick James   A/G
 W/O Geoffrey Symonds  A/G

those who successfully bailed out were
 Sgt John Mahony Nav
Sgt Reid  W/Op
and Sgt Hammond A/G

 Visiting the crash site, situated with Kielder forest , involves  a very  long walk and/or  some atrocious terrain to cross if taking the shortest route .  Its probaly the reason that so much wreckage still remains at the site .
Here is a very short video that I took at the site
 http://youtu.be/1xjqi76j030
Copy and Paste into your browser