The Pilot - 2^nd Lieutenant Kenneth W. Carty

Prior to the alerting the weather along the route and at Burtonwood had been checked by flight operations at St Mawgan and was found to be above minimums and was expected to remain so until late that afternoon. RAF Valley was to be used as an alternative destination and was forecast to be open all day. The crews were given a compressive weather and route briefing in which the height of the terrain in the Valley area was stressed, crews were also instructed to climb to 5,000 feet if it was necessary and to go on instruments, mention was also made to the activities of the Royal Observer Corp’s in the mountain areas of Wales and their practice of firing off red flares if aircraft were seen to be approaching high ground. East Anglia was also to be a diversion area in RAF Valley closed

After a slight delay completing the necessary paperwork the aircraft started to take off at 11:51 hours with 44-68072 lifting off from St Mawgan at 12:38 hours, at this time Burtonwood was reporting good visibility of three miles and a cloud height of 2,000 feet. The route taken by the aircraft was on a true heading of 352 degrees towards St David’s Head in West Wales for 87 miles, then on a true heading of 20 degrees towards RAF Valley for 88 miles, then towards RAF Woodavle on a true heading of 69 degrees for 55 miles and then towards Burtonwood on a true heading of 126 degrees for 20 miles, the duration of the flight would have been about 90 minutes. Twelve of the aircraft had arrived safely at Burtonwood, two others at local RAF stations and on at RAF Valley. After its fuel supply would have been exhausted and no report had been heard of the aircraft’s whereabouts, 44-68072 was reported missing.

At about 13:00 hours 44-68072 had flown into rising ground just below the summit of Y-Garn, a mountain that was over 3,100 feet near Llanberis. The aircraft had disintegrated whilst it had skidded over the top of the mountain for a distance of 1,000 yards, the main bulk of the aircraft went over a cliff into a ravine on the other side of the mountain, wreckage was strewn over a 2,000 square yard area, all of the crew were immediately killed in the crash.

Because the aircraft was a total wreck and a lack eyewitnesses it was impossible to determine whether the aircraft was functioning normally at the time of the crash, the condition of the propellers indicated that they were operating when they hit the ground, and that the aircraft had been flying on a true course of about 40 degrees when it hit the mountainside at an altitude of 3,000 feet.  It had also been reported that the pilot’s gyrocompass had a ten-degree oscillation, but the aircraft was released for flight after it was checked for fifteen minute on four different headings.

At 14:45 hours on the 2^nd February 1944 the RAF Mountain Rescue Team from Llandwrog, near Caernarvon was notified by flying control, that a B-26 Marauder had gone missing the previous day and that it was believed to have gone down in the North Wales area. It was noted that a local man, a bus driver from the village of Crosville, had reported the previous day hearing a low flying aircraft that appeared to be circling in cloud, followed by what appeared to be a deafening crash in the mountains above the Llanberis Pass. So it was based on this witness report that the rescue team set out in appalling weather conditions to search for the crashed aircraft. Then by 18:45 hours and in the darkness of winter nights, wreckage and 0.5 inch Browning machine guns from the crumpled bomber was found, close to the summit of Y-Garn, and just above and to the west of Llyn Clyd. However, because of the bad weather and prevailing darkness, in the interest of safety, it was decided to abandon any further search until first light the following day.

On the morning of the 3^rd February 1944, the rescue team set out again. Amongst them Team Leader and Doctor, Flight Lieutenant Tom Scudamore, Flight Sergeant Gregory (Mick) McTigue, Corporal Ernie Jackson and Leading Aircraftsman John (Campy) Barrows. A grueling sight met the team as they neared the mountain summit, It was discovered that the main plane had broken in two, one section lay close to the summit on the Llanberis side, along with the body of one of the crew, whilst the other part had fallen over the rugged scree on the Llyn Clyd side with the remaining four airmen amidst the carnage.

As “Campy” recalled: “The weather was treacherous and hauling the stretchers over frozen screes called for caution. The tiny Llyn Clyd set in its frame of snow-crested ridges looked so desolate, as we struggled down the valley. It was imperative that we got the stretcher parties of the mountain before nightfall, and we finally made it down to the track at Maes Caradoc, Ogwen, and we knew our work was over”.

The team’s thoughts after this dreadful and arduous task soon turned to food, but not without reflections on the tragic turn of events. Had it not been for a cruel twist of fate, those poor young American airmen would also be enjoying the fine British hospitality. “Campy” also recalled that “Amongst all that carnage were bundles of razor blades, and brand new copies of the holy bible, and bundles of clothes etc littered the mountainside”.

Crash site at time of crash

It appeared that winds much stronger than forecast were being experienced and blew the Marauder off track and to the west by several degrees. This in turn put the B-26 flying at a precariously dangerous altitude of 3,000 feet, directly above a treacherous mountain range know as the Glyders, Snowdonia. As the aircraft was some 2,000 feet below the designated safety height, it can only be thought that the pilot must have begun a descent on dead reckoning, no doubt believing he was clear of the Welsh mountains! A fatal assumption if this was the case, for the B-26 and its crew of five. At 15:05 hours a call was made by Burtonwood to St Mawgan to ground any further aircraft that had not taken off as an unknown weather front was moving in on Burtonwood.

Wreckage from the B-26 lay abundant for many years after the war, and hill walkers and climbers often questioned its presence. Then, in the 1960s and early 70s aviation historical groups began to operate throughout the country, and one such group, the Snowdonia Aviation Historical Society, began its own investigations into the Marauder incident. Once the circumstances were established, various booklets were published describing the appalling accident that befell those five young Americans. And in the mid-eighties, one man belonging to the aviation group, Arthur Evans, arranged to have a memorial erected in their honor, in the form of a stone tablet in a wall adjacent to a lay-by on the Llanberis Pass.