Stirling IV LJ850 crash site located

See this news article, but the search has been long and difficult..
Call for excavation on Normandy site of WWII plane crash | Daily Mail Online

The 7 crew members have been identified but there were 16 SAS paratroopers on board (as evidenced by the presence of an air despatcher

HAYES, GEORGE MALGWYN. Private. 6085839. June 18, 1944. Age 28 .BAYEUX MEMORIAL. Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
O'REILLY, JAMES Private 1602722. June 18, 1944 Age 21 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
CREANEY, WILLIAM JOHNPrivate 7019654. June 18, 1944 Age 22 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
GALE, DONALD MAURICE Private 5726852. June 18, 1944 Age 24 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
MACFARLANE, CHARLES Private 215922. June 18, 1944 Age 34 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
McBRIDE DOMINIC Private 14643720 June 18, 1944 Age 25 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
ROGERS, JOHN KENNETH Private 1835335 June 18, 1944 Age 22 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
LAW, GEORGE DALTON Private 3603627 June 18, 1944 Age 22 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
BOWEN, JOHN SEYMOUR. Private 899930 June 18, 1944. Age 22 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
LEADBETTER, WILLIAM. Corporal 921086 June 18, 1944 Age 21 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
WORTLEY, REGINALD JOSIAH Serjeant 4863732 June 18, 1944 Age 24 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
CAIRNS, LESLIE GEORGE. Lieutenant 164967 June 18, 1944 Age 24 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
MILLER, RONALD. Serjeant 1578003 June 18, 1944 Age 24 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
ARBUCKLE, JAMES FLEMING SPIERS. Private 2985863 June 18, 1944 Age 25 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
BROOK, HAROLD. Lance Corporal 2615070 June 18, 1944 Age 25 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.
BRYSON, WILLIAM. Corporal 2880083 June 18, 1944 Age 23 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Special Air Service Regiment, A.A.C.

So it may be that these men can at long lasted be identified and have their own resting place, rather on a Memorial.

 

Recherche de France-Crashes 39-45

TD

 

Thanks TD, that site didn't come up on my internet search.
I hadn't found one that linked all the men together.

 

Ah well that cos its a French site and they like to keep things French - hon he hon he hon as they say

TD

 

I am thinking that there must be a note somewhere who buried the bodies in what at the time was thought to be a battlefield common grave.There was evidence of the wreck of the Stirling on the surface and this eventually should have given rise to investigation of the aircraft's background.

Thinking further the CWGC should be interested as a grave site has been found....perhaps they have interpreted that since the casualties are known to have a CWGC memorial at Bayeux,their responsibilities are discharged.

This case is no different to casualty remains being found in unknown battlefield graves,then being identified from DNA and given a permanent CWGC grave plot with their inscriptions as missing removed from memorials.The Great War Fromells CWGC cemetery was created from a previously unknown mass burial site.

Having spent some time in the Morvan (not Morval) on holiday and learning more about clandestine activities of the Maquis and No 1 SAS, this thread is of immense interest.

Ian Wellsted covers these operations very well in his "SAS. With the Maquis" (published in 1997.)

Wellsted was at the ready to receive the rest of the A Squadron,he and the lead party had been dropped by Hudson which he records was fitted with a slide to exit parachutists.There were a number delays in the planned arrival of the reminder of the A Squadron...It was late evening that the news of the drop were received by radio that three aircraft would use the La Valottes DZ The weather was appalling and the previous night, the reception committee were unable to raise London due to poor wireless reception....having to sleep out in the open the party were soaked to the skin from torrential rain...a miserable night as recorded by Ian Wellsted.

Ian Wellsted takes up the story after having difficulty in locating the La Valotte DZ in pouring rain on the night for the reception of the the three aircraft.....

...At last,somewhat dispirited,we stopped by the roadside to consider our next move.All of a sudden we heard the sound of a heavy vehicle and coming down the road behind us was the light of an enormous truck.For a dreadful moment we thought that it was a Boche patrol and my passengers bailed out into the ditch.I was well jammed behind the steering wheel and unable to move.I expected a quick burst in the back at any moment,tan as the car drew abreast,I recognised,with a sigh of relief,the 32 seater bus with the DZ party and that more by good luck than good judgement we had arrived at the right place after all.

The DZ fires were arranged and we waited eagerly for a sign of the long for squadron.The rain increased,a low fog gathered over the DZ.In the distance the sound of engines could be faintly heard.The fires were lit.

Distantly we heard the three planes circling around.One of those roared over very low.Dimly through the mist and rain we could make out the silhouette of a Stirling.Then the roars of the engines died away.The planes were making for their base once more.One of those Stirlings failed to return and Les Cairns and sixteen of the best and bravest men we had were never heard of again.

We waited cold and disconsolate on the DZ until all hope had gone.We waited until the last dim echo had passed into nothingless and then at last we turned our cars for home.

From this evidence there was no drop of SAS personnel,all three Stirlings,unable through inclement weather and being unable to recognised the DZ returned for home. LJ 850 must have been downed on the return route to Fairford over Calvados.

 

Photograph of LJ850 from Dennis Williams' Stirlings in Action with Airborne Forces. Crane and his crew also dropped paratroopers from 7th Parachute Battalion for Operation Tonga on D-Day.

 

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any evidence in Allied files on crew or passengers being buried. As of 8 September, 1948, when the RAF closed the case there were "no known graves".

 

Thanks Dave for the added information

I am not privy to where the crash site is in Calvados but if it was outside the bridgehead and if so, the dead may have been buried by the Germans although the dynamic state on the battlefield may have prevented this being done and local citizens may have been involved eventually.

I am assuming that from your information the British authorities exhausted their line of inquiry and the general assumption appears to be that the aircraft was lost over the channel.

 

Gents - am I missing something here??

Some are talking that this plane crashed in Normandy/Calvados, others are saying near Morven (I have used Montigny-en-Morvan) in the Dept - Nièvre - these two are really a long way apart


I have also found this reference to the aircraft
Aircraft lost on Allied Force’s Special Duty Operations & Associated Roll of Honour
(still under construction - last amended 19.12.2013)
Date Aircraft Type &
Serial
Unit Crew Location Cause Sources /
References
Listing compiled by Roy Tebbutt of the Carpetbagger Aviation Museum, Harrington, UK. email cbaggermuseum@aol.com Page 252
17/18.6.44 Stirling
LJ850
Y
620 Sqdn RAF P/O Robert William Crane RAAF - Pilot - died
F/Sgt Frank Norman Johnson RAFVR - died
WO2 John Percy Clasper RCAF - died
Sgt David Wynne Evans RAFVR - died
F/Sgt Granville William Stopford RAFVR - died
F/Sgt Benjamin James Profit RCAF- died
Commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, UK
Englisg Channel T/O Fairford as part of a three plane
resupply mission for Operation
Houndsworth. 2 planes returned to
Fairford without having made the drop
due to cloud cover but this
aircraft failed to return from the
Houndsworth V resupply mission to
Morvan region of France for SAS.
Believed to have come down in
Channel on outbound trip to France
with loss of all 6 crew along with I
officer and 14 men of 1 SAS who are
commemorated on the Bayeux
Memorial in France:
Lt L.G. Cairns
J.F.S. Arbuckle
Pvt J.S. Bowen
L/Cpl H. Brook
Cpl W. Bryson
Pvt W.J. Creaney
Pvt D.M. Gale
Pvt G.M. Hayes
Pvt G.D. Law
Cpl W. Leadbetter
Pvt C. Macfarlane
Pvt D. McBride
Sgt R. Miller
Pvt J. O’Reilly
Pvt J.K. Rogers

It states that it was part of a 3 plane missionn for Operation Houndsworth
Operation Houndsworth - Wikipedia

TD

Edited to add:
It is also discussed here - unless you have already seen it - Missing Stirling LJ850 - Short Stirling & RAF Bomber Command Forum

Also here for reference - Was HK559 unique?

 

Ian Wellsted does not record any crash of an aircraft that night in the vicinity of the DZ La Valotte.

 

Thats what I am trying to understand.

If it crashed in the channel then there would be huge numbers of boats crossing the channel at that time 24 hours a day and someone, somewhere would have seen/heard the plane crash.

If it crashed anywhere in Calvados then that area was chock full of Allied and German troops and again someone somewhere would have said "what the f**k was that" either in English or German. It might also have been said in French as some farmer would have found a Stirling + occupants sitting in one of his fields, its not something you could could ignore and hope it went away.

TD

 

The newspaper account (if it's telling the truth) indicates that it crashed in flames in the Calvados region and that subsequent fires set-off ammunition. It further states that children played post-war amongst the wreckage.

It is not clear how deep it went in but there must have been a lot of surface wreckage and it seems inconceivable with so many aboard that no human remains were found and presumably they were all buried locally as 'unknown' The problem here seems to have been that of identification, not that the crash site was unknown.

 

There's more on ARRSE about this, including a video of the putative crash site.
The farm is even named Juin 18th Ferme, which should be a clue.....
As far as I can ascertain, the locals believed it to be American. Notwithstanding the actual identity, somehow the crash site does not appear to have given up any human remains, then or now, nor was there much recovery to show what aircraft it was.
Given all the activity in June, one would have expected more to have been done at the time, but perhaps it was that there was so much activity that this never got brought to anyones attention..
Small arms weapons and ammo have been recovered but I haven't yet found any definite link to this being LJ850 except for the fact it seems to have been the only likely aircraft lost there that night.

 

Here is the Canadian documentary on LJ850, it's only 10 minutes long.

 

An article from February 2016 on LJ850

 

Found another site that covers the loss

Is this the missing Stirling LJ850?

TD

 

This is all I have on the loss which comes from Australian records
(Source: NAA: A705, 166/8/506)
This info states only 15 Parachutists so have altered it to the 16 named although TD's info states 15 and a crew of six?? whereas the crew including the despatcher is seven.

RAAF PERSONNEL SERVING ON ATTACHMENT IN ROYAL AIR FORCE
SQUADRONS AND SUPPORT UNITS IN WORLD WAR 2 AND MISSING WITH
NO KNOWN GRAVE.
413533 Pilot Officer CRANE, Robert William
Source:
NAA: A705, 166/8/506
Aircraft Type: Stirling
Serial number: LJ 850
Radio call sign:
Unit: 620 Sqn RAF
Summary:
Stirling LJ 850 of 620 Sqn RAF took off at 2330 hors on the night of 17/18th June 1944
from RAF Station Fairford, Gloucestshire, for special operations over enemy occupied
territory. The aircraft was carrying its crew and 15 parachutists of the Special Air Service
Regiment.
The locality of the dropping zone was in the Morvan mountains about 120 miles ESE of
Orleans. Nothing further was heard of the aircraft after take off and the unit states that
whilst it cannot be assumed that the aircraft was lost in the target area, it is possible that
it crashed into high ground in the target area.
The next of kin of one of the crew (Flt Sgt Johnson) was informed by another pilot on the
same operation that LJ 850 was seen to crash into a hillside whilst making their run in
and did not catch fire. This pilot mentioned the Savoy Hills which are over 100 miles
from the Morvan mountains.
A 1948 search report stated that no trace of the aircraft or those on board was found.
Crew:
RAAF 413533 PO Crane, R W, Captain (Pilot)
RAF Flt Sgt Johnson, F N (Navigator)
RAF WO Clasper, J P (Air Bomber)
RAF Sgt Evans, D W (Flight Engineer)
RAF Flt Sgt Stopford, G W (Wireless Operator/Air)
RAF Sgt Profit, B J (Air Gunner)
RAF Sgt Wilding, P (Despatcher)
Also 16 Parachutists (Pax)

 

It seems unusual that a large 4 engined bomber could crash and not be located for upwards of 60 or 70 years.
Even more so that 23 humans have not been located, rescued or retrieved from the crash and yet the farm now actually carries the date as the name of the farm. Why did they name it 18th June if they didn't know exactly where and what had crashed there, so what became of the wreckage and remains? Surely not all of a large aircraft disappears beneath the ground immediately, especially as this doesn't appear to have been a vertical dive at full power.
Hopefully this will all become resolved in the fullness of time, and without scavengers picking it over and destroying what is left.
23 men await the dignity of a known grave site.

 

If the French witness,who as a boy gave information that is correct, that there was an aircraft crash at the Calvados location.one would have thought it would have been investigated when the location fell into Allied hands.

Perhaps it was not a RAF aircraft but a USAAF aircraft which has already been suggested.
Looking at USAAF operations for 18 June,the 8th Air Force.(B 17 and B 24 aircraft) it appears that the force was engaged solely with German targets.

There might be further information available when the request to excavate is heard at the meeting on 6 October in Caen. There will have to be a strong case submitted to the authorities for the investigation to make progress.

 

It could always have been called 18e Juin after General C De Gaulles speech in 1940

Ha bet no one thought about that

TD