Kevin Patience recounts a stumble across a crash site on Snowdon.
It was 1963 and I had been posted to RAF Valley in Anglesey, North Wales to service the navigation radar fitted to the station’s De Havilland Vampire T11s training aircraft.
As the radar and wireless bay were in the same building, I was occasionally asked to assist with servicing the VHF radio sets. This in turn led to being loaned to 22 Squadron flying the Westland Whirlwind rescue helicopters.
One morning, having checked the VHF set and its aerials on the Whirlwind, I was in the crew room when the boss came in asking if anyone fancied a trip to Snowdon as part of some continuation training for a new pilot.
Two of us grabbed headsets, joined the rest of the crew and clambered aboard. The turbine wound up and the rotor blades began to spin. We taxied off the apron and, after tower clearance, set off across the island.
The Menai Straits appeared below us with Thomas Telford’s suspension road bridge and Robert Stephenson’s Britannia railway bridge. I was reminded how treacherous this smooth-looking waterway was when shown a photograph of the old Victorian Navy wooden battleship HMS Conway grounded and broken on the channel edge.
With the side door open and a harness secured internally, we sat with our feet out the door watching a miniature world unfold slowly below us. In front of us could be seen the towering mass of Snowdon with a tiny steam train puffing its way to the summit.
We circled the peak looking down at those who had ventured 3,500 feet up to the top of the second highest in the UK after Ben Nevis. Around four miles to the west lay another peak, Mynydd Mawr, known as ‘The Elephant’. As this was unlikely to have any climbers, the pilot decided to land for a change of pilots and a coffee break.
While stretching our legs, two of us wandered around the peak. In the long grass we suddenly came upon an old Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and a quantity of plywood and pieces of metal. Down the slope was a rusted and bent Hispano 20mm cannon and a distinctive tailwheel. This confirmed the aircraft’s identity: a De Havilland Mosquito.
Until then I had no idea that the mountains in North Wales had been the site of so many aircraft crashes over the years. As we flew back to Valley we could see remains of other aircraft littered across the peaks.
Being a member of an aviation group, I later wrote to the archivist asking about the identity of the wreckage. His reply showed that I had stumbled across Mosquito NF Mk II W4088. On 1 November 1944 it had taken off from RAF Cranfield in Bedford on a night training flight. On board was a French pilot, Captain Jean Goujon de Thuisy, and a Belgian navigator, Pilot Officer Joseph Marchal.
The flight plan had allowed an ample safety margin for high ground, but it appears the pilot turned east before the correct time and flew into The Elephant. Both men were subsequently buried in their home countries.
Every year when Remembrance Day comes around, I think of that morning on Snowdon, and of all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.
Remains of the Mosquito on Mynydd Mawr. © aircrashsites.co.uk
