This is still the only site with GPS verified, precise and accurate grid references for all of the peak district crash sites where any wreckage remains. We also have many in Wales, Yorkshire, and Bowland.
We are still active, and are in the process of updating the site, which has been rather inactive for a few years due to work commitments.
A day out with Matt ZX to see if we could find anything from the Marauder crash site on Y Garn yesterday.
The photo shows what we believe to be the impact point of this medium bomber of the Western face of Y Garn, Snowdonia. The parallel lines of scree are deepish scrapes which have filled over time with small stones. The site location was proven correct by the presence of some distinctive bits of aircraft aluminium, as shown in the entry below.
David Earl reports that the aircraft broke in two from here, with one bit staying with one of the crew on the Llanberis side, and the remainder of the crew and 'plane going over the edge to break up and scatter in the valley below. An old-time wreckhunter has written to tell us that by the early 60s only the props lay on this side of the hillside, the wing sections seemingly having been pushed over the cliff.
Using telescopes and binoculars from the summit, we established that the undercarriage and other bits not weighed in for scrap by the local magpies are still present. We will return by the Eastern route to get photos and accurate locations for the scattered wreckage on a later trip.
Location of impact point: SH 62842 59856
Location of undercarriage:SH 631 602
1. The new crater (illustrated) is very similar in appearance to the one on Black Edge, known to be a V1 site.
4. We have seen no other V1 sites which are a flat black scar on the peat like the supposed V1 site on Howden Moor. All other sites are sharp-sided craters like the new candidate.
5. We have evidence from Tomsk that scraps found at the supposed V1 crater come instead from a Luftmine B parachute mine. Here's a Luftmine B:
Note the distinctive cross section of the fins, and their five rivets. Here's a bit recovered from the old site with that cross section and five rivets:
6. Tomsk also identifies parts found at the new site as belonging to a V1. Here's the bolt which holds the warhead on on a museum piece:
Here's something which looks very similar recovered from the site:
Here's the guillotine mechanism which cuts the cables to send the V1 into a dive:
So our initial scepticism has been greatly tempered. The new location seems far more likely to be correct than the commonly held one. The sixth comment on this post also contains seemingly confirmatory information from the Imperial War Museum including these pics. Thanks Dave.
It'll be interesting if others modify their opinions and websites to suit. More interesting still will be who they credit-Mick tells me that Alan Clark for one is simply following us around the sites we have visited in Wales nowadays without crediting us, judging by the updates to his site.
New Location: SK 18224 97083
The smaller of the two wreckage piles with its home-made memorial stone.
Someone seems to have claimed the site for Wales, despite the crew being from Canada and New Zealand in the main, and the aircraft having flown from 101 Group in Yorkshire.
Location: SH 95433 09203
This is one of the oxygen tanks from the rear of the cockpit. Their original location can be seen in the P-47's flight manual at the link below.
If you click through and zoom in, the following text can be clearly read," TYPE D-2 INTERNAL VOLUME 500 CUBIC INCHES AVAILABLE OXYGEN FROM ...50 POUNDS PER SQ..PRESSURE=6.9 CUBIC.."
The full text would originally have said "F.S.P. CO., BREATHING OXYGEN, NONSHATTERABLE TYPE D-2 INTERNAL VOLUME 500 CUBIC INCHES, AVAILABLE OXYGEN FROM 400 TO 50 POUNDS PER SQUARE INCH PRESSURE=6.9 CUBIC FEET" if you are interested.
Location: SH 88510 14378
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The largest pile of bits, (probably collected in this gully by the recovery team) is maybe 20 metres into the woods behind the engine.
Location: SH 88470 14434
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Detail from the pile of skinning and components nearerest to the edge of the wood
Location: SH 88453 14438
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Up over the hill, past that farm somewhere lie the remains of a Canadian crewed Halifax bomber. No-one has yet found the wreck site.
Location: SE 130 686
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A jet trainer aircraft crashed into Gouthwaite reservoir in the area shown in this photograph in June 1978 killing its instructor pilot.
Location: SE 131 694
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Memorial to the five human crew killed in the 1942 crash of this American heavy bomber, and their dog "Booster", who was interred at the site.
The site is a full 82 m from the six decimal place coordinates given on the "GPS Walker" site. Perhaps that is why Alan Clark is happy to carry a link to that inaccurate and ill-maintained site and not to ours. No-one is going to find much from "GPS Walker"'s coordinates.
Since the site's title implies that GPS is being used for navigation and production of coordinates, we have no idea how the coordinates published on the website can be so far out.
We have had no success in contacting "GPS Walker", but if you are out there, your comments are invited. We link below our +/-3m accurate coordinates to the relevant page of "GPS Walker"'s site.
Location: SH 71564 74345
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One of Welsh Barry's finds, a pretty much complete 40mm Bofurs anti-aircraft autocannon apparently abandoned to rot in the wilds of Staffordshire.
Location:SK 04588 57285
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Scraps from the crash site of this Hurricane in the Wyre Forest.
Location SO 7472 77904
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A nut from a Spitfire which crashed in Postensplain, Wyre Forest.
This is our first crash site for a female pilot.
Mrs Rosamund King Everard-Steenkamp was at the controls. We are told that her husband had himself previously died in an aviation accident. She may have been the first woman to fly a jet.
Location: SO 74870 79165
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The remains of this Oxford in Wassell Wood, SW Midlands are more substantial than those at the other two sites visited on the day.
Location: SO 79661 77602
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The parents of the teenage pilot placed this memorial in the crater caused by his crashing his jet into the ground after disobeying orders in order to fly low over his home whilst supposedly on a training flight.
He had previously got away this with on several occasions in prop 'planes, but this time he became disoriented in cloud, and hit the ground with fatal results.
If this seems a harsh summary of events, Pat Cunnigham's is less generous still.
The pilot's ashes are also interred here.
Location: SK 43346 95752
We think the molten aluminium mixed in with these more recognisable components show this to be the burn-out site of this disputed wreck site on Elidir Fawr.
There is a cairn immediately adjacent to this scatter of bits, perhaps indicating that someone else thought the same.
We are calling it as the Skua rather than a Beaufighter, based on what is there to be seen now. It might even be more of the Blenheim. That would be a long wreckage trail, mind.
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A cluster of fair sized bits of steel below the burn site, with my walking pole for scale.
Location: SH 60960 61570
The lowest sizeable bit we found near the HGW coordinates for the Skua. Looks to be a bit of undercarriage and associated oleo strut.
There is some evidence that this might be a bit of the Blenheim, despite being much closer to High Ground Wrecks' Skua site.
A correspondent tells us that the undercarriage is from a Blenheim. (I would say suggests, but the correspondent is not a person who suggests, but rather expects to be beleived on the basis of his own unrealistic self-appraisal) This is easily possible, though the photos offered as evidence are far from conclusive.
No-one is presently offering any convincing evidence to dispute that any of the other suspected Skua parts are from a Blenheim. No-one other than this correspondent, and his mate have offered any opinion, despite the photos having been posted on the Aero Part Identity Board since 28/10/2008.
Location: SH 60900 61740
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Some bits of aluminium skinning from the site of the 31 March 1943 crash of 22 year old Flying Officer Edward Alexander Perry's Bristol Blenheim.
We don't normally bother too much with the historical stuff on here, but there's really nothing on the web from other wreck hunters on this.
Though there were no identifying marks on any of these bits, we are calling this definitively Blenheim wreckage based on the proximity to the High Ground Wrecks coordinates. No-one is disagreeing with us so far.
Location: SH 60874 62112
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A scrap of aluminium skinning from the crater left by the 1945 crash of this Douglas Havoc near Quarnford, Staffordshire.
Location:SK 03209 68071
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