Not brilliant but it's the best shot of the crash site of Halifax BB275 at Four mile bridge by Valley the plane stalled and fell into the mud in the foreground on the afternoon of 1/2/1943 with the loss of the 8 man crew !The Halifax from 1659 H.C.U was on a training flight from R.A.F Leeming when it's port outer engine stopped, sadly a brave attempt by Plt officer Cornelius flying in a Airspeed Oxford from R.A.F Tywyn to Shepard the plane to R.A.F Llanbedr failed as bad weather broke contact between the planes and the pilot of BB275 headed for Valley where the plane fell about a 1 1/2 miles from the runway !
A board of enquiry found a miss handling of the fuel system [ * see update !] led to the crash given the high work load the crew would have been under this is all to common a mistake, though this was a MK 2 Halifax which were notorious for serious handling issues due to rudder overbalance at landing speeds which had resulted in many crew lives lost the most serious of which was the loss of V9977 which crashed near Ross-on-Wye with the loss of the entire H2s radar development
team !
5 of the crew were buried in Holyhead !.
Pilot J.G.Arsenault
Navigator Flt Sgt.. D.C.Carder
Flt Engineer Sgt P.Larsen
Air Gunner Sgt H.F.Corrie
Air Gunner Sgt .D.E Section J.L.Boivin
All above R.C.A.F ,there were 3 other crew but I have no information on their names or ranks !
Update =
A big thanks to Esben Olsen for giving me the names of the rest of the crew of BB275 who are as follows =
Navigator Sgt. A.B.Wedderspoon
Bomb aimer Sgt B.J.George
Wireless Operator Air Gunner Sgt T.H.Clapham
*=Also for the information on the cooling system on the RR Merlin engine which had reliability issues and seems the more likely to have caused of the engine failure on BB275 and not miss handling of the fuel system !
Again thanks
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