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.

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

  

Armstrong Whitley T4138

On the 15th of December 1940 T4138 came to grief on Arden Great Moor in the North Yorks Moors .
The crew took off from RAF Topcliffe on a mission to bomb Berlin along with 70 other aircraft . Unfortunately they developed engine trouble and returned to base with a full bomb load . The aircraft hit the hill whilst circling to land .
The bombs did not explode although the aircraft did burn.
Of the crew of five only one crew member died.
They were
P/O. H.H.J. Miller Pilot
Sgt. D.H. Gilbert Co-Pilot
Sgt.G.Thorpe Obs
Sgt. A.E. Hammond A/G,W/O
who all survived
and
Sgt. Cyril Williams A/G, W/O ...Killed.

At the site today in a slight hollow amidst a barren patch of moor a few small fragments still survive .
No Whitleys have survived to this day .
The bombing raid was a failure less than half the aircraft dropped thier bombs anywhere near Berlin and those that did inflicted little damage.
These early raids upon Germany were largely ineffectual , due to the great distance of almost 600 miles , the slow aircraft speed , low ceiling height , light bomb load, and the poor method of target finding . many lessons were learnt over the coming years which eventually resulted in the huge operations which devestated entire cities.

Lancaster ED481

Flying out of RAF Waddington as part of a 148 aircraft bombing raid to Hamburg on the 30th January 1943 . This was the first raid to use the H2S Radar to assist the target finding . This proved to be unsuccessful on this occasion. Still , 58 people lost thier lives on the ground and another 164 injured. Of the 148 aircraft 5 were lost including ED481.
The aircraft, with a damaged engine, was diverted from Waddington on its return to attempt a landing at RAF Leeming . It never made it, crashing onto the slopes of Hawnby Hill in the North Yorkshire Moors.
There is some conjecture about the reason for the crash . It could have been due to the damaged engine or possibly it simply ran out of fuel due to the change of landing airfield.
The crew were all killed.
W/O Frank Nelson RCAF Pilot
Sgt. McKeen Allen RCAF Flt Eng
Sgt. George Done Nav
Sgt Alan Williams Bomb Aimer
Sgt. Henry Jones W/O
Sgt. Arthur Butcher A/G
Sgt. Walter Murton A/G

The Pilot was American and Flight Engineer was Canadian, the rear gunner was from South Africa .

The lead photo shows the area of the crash in the foreground. The supplementry shots show our memorial cross and a chunk of wreckage.
Very little is evident at this site now, We found a few small fragments of very corroded alloy amongst the tufts of grass.
This is a crash site that needs a memorial . Something to mark the passing of these men who almost made it home .
As nothing indicates the location of this historic site , I can at least give you an accurate Grid Reference SE53784 91445 , please visit if you can and nod your respects .

The only aircraft part we could find in the undergrowth

Luftwaffe Dornier Do-217E-4 4342

On the night of 17 December 1942, German bomber Do 217 4342 flying from its base at Deelen- Arnhem in Holland, crashed on the moors east of Northallerton while on a bombing raid on the city of York.

The Dornier struck a wall on Easterside Hill in what is now the North York Moors National Park, some 24 miles from its intended target.

All those on board were killed in the crash. The remains of the pilot and observer were never recovered.

We found just one small fragment of debris remaining (pictured above) which we buried close to the crash site.

CREW
Oberleutnant Rolf Hausner (or Häussner?) - pilot
Unteroffizier Sirius Erd - observer
Oberfeldwebel Hartwig Hupe - wireless operator
Oberfeldwebel Ernst Weiderer - engineer