gsomerville

Published at 00:00, Friday, 23 February 2007

By GEMMA SOMERVILLE

DESPITE being thought of as more of a retreat for safety than a hive of activity during the Second World War, Tynedale is not entirely void of evidence the conflict took place.

In fact, it is quite the contrary where air crashes are concerned.

For the district is littered with boggy craters and overgrown hillsides disguising wreckage upon wreckage, providing proof aplenty that the area has witnessed its fair share a tragedy over the years.

Very few crash sites have revealed enemy aircraft, the majority telling sad stories of the multiple loss of young lives.

In October 1940 a Whitley bomber, MK.V P4952, was returning from a raid on Stettin oil plant in Poland when it ran out of fuel.

The five-strong crew baled out safely but for some unknown reason their plane had not been pointed out to sea and flew on as the crew slowly descended to earth.

Three miles south west of Bellingham, the stricken bomber hit high ground and eventually crashed at the Meslings near Bellingham.

Among the crew of the Whitley was Sgt Mark Alfred Niman, who began serving as a wireless operator with 10 Squadron at RAF Leeming, where the aircraft was based.

The crew eventually landed eight miles south at Ladyhill, near Stonehaugh, and spent a cold night sleeping in their parachutes.

Only two weeks after the Whitley crashed, a Vickers Wellington bomber, MK.IC T2546 from RAF Newmarket, came down on its return from a mission to bomb Berlin.

Poor weather conditions and low visibility caused the aircraft to crash on Blakehope Fell, west of Otterburn.

It is thought that the flight lieutenant opted to descend through the cloud in order to pinpoint their position when the Wellington struck high ground.

The aircraft crashed through a dry stone wall and caught fire on impact, taking the life of one of the six crew, air gunner Sgt Hallows.

In July 1941 a Hurricane crashed into woods at Fairley Farm, Whittonstall, the pilot breaking his ankle parachuting to safety.

A Spitfire crashed at Wallington Hall in August 1941, killing the pilot, the same day that Moatlaw Farm at Ryal was hit by five bombs.

Next, in September 1941, a Hawker Hurricane, MK.I W9202 from Crosby-on-Eden, was forced to make a wheels up landing after the fuel level became low in bad weather.

The Hurricane was on a camera gun exercise when the pilot, Sous-Lt Jean de Tedesco, came down successfully at Yarrow, Falstone.

A local man reported seeing an aircraft flying very low up the North Tyne Valley from the direction of Bellingham and saw it come down in a field at the foot of Yarrow Bank.

By the time the man reached the aircraft, Jean de Tedesco was sitting on the wing, having already contacted his base, allowing local children to sit in the cockpit.

Another Hurricane crashed into the summit of Peel Fell at Kielder, killing the Indian pilot in November that same year.

Hukum Chand Mehta was piloting one of four Hurricanes which took off from RAF Acklington for a formation flying exercise.

Mehta, flying MK.IIB Z3150 of 43 Squadron, was leading the formation but went missing on the return journey.

The next two days were spent searching for the aircraft to no avail, until a local shepherd reported seeing the aircraft crash into the hillside at incredible speed, leaving only the tail unit visible.

P/O Mehta’s body was found some distance from the point of impact, buried under eight foot of peat.

He was the son of Karam Chand Mehta, of Lyallpur, Pakistan, and he was cremated at Newcastle’s West Road Crematorium.

There was no let-up for Christmas in 1941, with another Hurricane crashing while flying low near Ovingham.

Also in December a Westland Lysander, MK.I V9557, came down at Otterburn while taking part in an artillery co-operation exercise over the ranges.

The pilot, F/O J.K. Astin, noticed the engine beginning to cut out after arriving at Otteburn from RAF Clifton.

Unable to rectify the problem, he was forced to land on soft, uneven ground, causing the aircraft to overturn and crash.

Luckily Astin escaped without injury and the aircraft was later salvaged.

Then, on March 22 1942, residents of Wark heard the sound of a single aircraft engine overhead.

Australian Sgt Clarrie Harker was the pilot of Hurricane MK.I P3658 from RAF Usworth, which went on to dive vertically towards the ground when it failed to pull out of a loop successfully.

He managed to bale out, leaving the Hurricane to complete its descent into a field on Moat Hill Farm, where it exploded in a ball of flames.

Sgt Harker’s parachute became snagged in a tree nearby, leaving him suspended.

Local children raced to the scene to find one of the village’s elderly female residents shouting obscenities at him, mistaking him for a German.

One of the North Tyne’s most famous crashes occurred in February 1943, when an American Mustang, MK.I AG617, flew into a boggy hillside at Hareshaw Head near Bellingham, at an estimated 400mph.

The pilot, 22-year-old F/O Johnny Fisher, was killed and an RAF recovery crew dug 16 feet into the bog to recover his body.

Since then numerous attempts to recover the aircraft have failed, until last year when substantial remains were recovered during an excavation by the Air Crash Investigation Archaeologists (ACIA), founded by Jim Corbett of Bellingham.

A team of 20, including members of the ACIA, managed to unearth propellers, bits of engine, the engine support frame and a door from the undercarriage of the aircraft, during a dig which took place last September.

The door even has a visible imprint of a wheel on it, which may have happened on impact.

Among the most interesting of the finds is the aircraft’s oil tank, which was still full of oil, and the pilot’s leather flying helmet with his name, John Fisher, written inside it.

Mr Corbett said at the time: “Finding the flying helmet was very eerie. We think that this may have been taken off and discarded when his body was recovered.

“We are sure that the rest of the engine will be buried and are looking to organise another attempt next summer.”

A crew of six came down in a Vickers Wellington, MK.IC X3171, in March 1943.

After taking off from RAF Harewell, the cause of the crash remains a mystery, but it came down while on fire on Comb Moor at Greenhaugh.

Investigations suggest that the pilot may have lost control, causing the aircraft to dive into a peat bog on the moor, killing the entire crew.

The crash site was excavated by the ACIA in 2005, who recovered various sections of the aircraft, including part of the propeller blade.

In November last year a memorial was unveiled at the Holly Bush Inn at Greenhaugh, in a ceremony attended by the friends and family of the crew.

A Hurricane from RAF Milfield, near Wooler, crashed at Ottercops Moss, Elsdon, in June 1943.

The pilot, F/Sgt John Gates, was knocked unconscious during the crash, but came to just as the aircraft stopped moving.

He was rescued from the wreckage by soldiers travelling nearby after he was unable to recover from a low diving manoeuvre.

But it wasn’t only Allied aircraft which met a sad fate, for on March 25, 1943, a German Dornier bomber was shot down by a night fighter at Steel Rigg, near Twice Brewed on the Roman Wall.

The four-man crew were all killed and are buried at Carlisle.

The mayhem continued into 1944 when in April a pilot aged just 20, Sgt Cyril Jack Jewell, died when his Spitfire slammed into Houxty Woods at Wark.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk