The plane was heard by locals flying in low cloud up the valley. A few moments later a vivid flash could be seen closely followed by an audible crunch of metal as the aircraft came to grief on the rock strewn peaty moor. An orange glow filled the cloud around the crashed aircraft as the fuselage and wings burned fiercely.
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| Mr Barry Love places a cross at the site of the Lancaster's tail section and where his relative died |
Locals having realised what had happened rushed to the blazing wreck to see if anything could be done. First on the scene were the male members of the Bagshaw family, John and his sons Jack, Basil, Neville and Ernest. It took them only thirty minutes to reach the wreckage from Old Road, Tintwhistle. Yet what awaited them was a scene of devastation.
The pilot must have seen the moor at the very last moment and attempted to make the aircraft climb away from the danger, too late the nose rose, but the tail hit the ground breaking off the whole tail section from just before the aircraft's doorway. The aircraft's recovery then stalled and the main fuselage of the Lancaster smashed into the moor and exploded in a ball of flames. Contemporary photographs taken the day after the crash show an almost intact tail section sat upon a peaty mound with the rest of the aircraft destroyed in the distance behind it.
The first crew member they came across was the person whose post was Tail-End Charlie on this training operation. It is assumed that this was Sergeant William Allen Love who was a signaller. He preferred to be called Allen rather than William.
Sgt.Love was still alive when the would be rescuers arrived. He was to die in the arms of Mr Bagshaw. Sgt Love's watch had stopped at 10 seconds to midnight which must indicate the exact moment the Lancaster slammed into the moor.
The rest of the 7 man crew were either engulfed in the fuselage or lay dead, scattered around the burning aircraft. It was most likely the usual Peak District crash site case of the aircraft being too low, in cloud and perhaps they believed they were somewhere other than over the Dark Peak.
Roll time on 67 years and a series of events leads Sgt Love's great nephew Mr Barry Love to this tragic section of moor above Longdendale.
Barry inherited a group photograph on a family members death and from this starting point, a picture dated 1941 of the three brothers dressed in uniform the search began.
Jack(Barrys Grandfather) and James were both Flight Sergeants in the RAF, an Observer and Air Gunner respectively, whilst Allen too young to join up in 1941 was pictured in an ATC uniform.
In 1942 the Wellington in which Jack was flying had to crash land in Northern France. Jack walked 290 miles and made it to the Swiss border where he was captured by the Germans and detained as a POW for the remainder of the war. He passed away in 1997 aged 85.
Unfortunately James was killed in action when his aircraft, Handley Page Halifax LK762, was shot down during a March raid on Nuremburg in 1944 by a fighter using Schrage Musik (flying underneath the bomber and firing a vertically mounted gun into the fuel tanks of the bomber). It was James first op on his second tour of duty.
The third brothers fate (Allen) was very much an unknown to Barry and became the quest.
In the first instance Barry searched through the Births Deaths and Marriages register finally finding a person with the same name registered as dead in Cheshire. Another photograph turned up of a young man now dressed in a RAF Air Gunners uniform , it was signed on the back ''With Love to Mum and Dad from Allen''. Could this be the boy in the group photograph dressed in ATC uniform?
Here the trail grew cold until Barry contacted a Mr Jim Sewell who, with access to the Armed Forces personnel database, found more information on how Allen had met his end. The Lancaster crash was noted and this led to a search of the internet where they came across some photographs of the scene taken by myself, Paul Johnson. I was able to later confirm that these were of PA411 and that it was indeed the aircraft of Sgt Love.
Barry then placed an advert on Glossop.com for anyone who may have further information. There was an immediate response from well known local aircraft crash site historian Mr. Norman Winterbottom.
A meeting was arranged and Barry, Norman, and myself were joined by aviation archaeologist Mr. Kevin Brown and his partner Lynda, along with the TV Aircraft Crash Investigator Garth Barnard.
On the arranged date Sunday 5th April, this small party made its way up the moor in perfect weather listening intently to Norman's insight to the crash and to Barry's explanation as to how we had all arrived at this point. At the crash site, respects were paid to the crewmen and we all discussed the crash and attempted to visualise the scene and how the crash had panned out. A crash site visit is always poignant never less so than when in attendance with a family member of the deceased crew.
It was a moving occasion.
The full list of the men who died in this crash
Flight Sergeant Jack Sherwood Thompson, Pilot
Flight Lieutenant Peter Maurice Maskell, Navigator
Flight Sergeant Robert Smith, Signaller
Flight Sergeant Vincent Graham, Flight Engineer
Sergeant William Allen Love, Signaller
Flight Lieutenant Thomas Lowerth Johnson, Instructor
Flight Sergeant David William Henry Harris, Instructor
Some of these men survived the war yet perished on an unforgiving hillside in the bleakness of a winters night. Despite being a truly tragic tale there is now a sense of closure for Barry and his family.
On our way down from PA411 we visited a P-38 crash site and the site of the 3 Hurricanes that also crashed on the Knarr. It was a reminder, if we needed one, of the many sacrifices made for us by men we will never know.
Barry would like to thank all parties for attending on the day and in particular Jim Sewell for his valuable research and Norman Winterbottom for relating the in depth knowledge of the happenings of the night of 20th/21st December 1948.
