Aircraft Digs In Cornwall

Bombgone

No, not gliding now, to my regret. It doesn’t sit well with the demands of family and sad to say the Cornish Gliding (& Flying) Club no longer operates at Perranporth.

I do have a lot of fun with this flight simulator gliding group though, and perhaps one day I’ll get airborne for real again:

www.ukvga.org

Best wishes,

Phil

Thanks for the Link Phil. Will give this a go. I was Demobbed from the RAF before I could go solo. Did a bit more at Tarrant Rushton in its final days. Though Airo tow was a tad to expensive for me at the time.

Cheers

Mike

That’s the chap Phil, the video that you have linked is fantastic and very thoughtfully put together – thank you.

Years ago I did some gliding as a passenger at Culdrose with the CAS thanks to Jack Angove (?), I think we were helped (or even hosted?) by the Perranporth guys, great sunny days in a Blanik behind a Chipmunk!

Isles of Scilly engine

When i used to travel to the Isles of Scilly on a regular basis i came across an A S Tiger engine ’embedded’ in the cliff near the council dump.This would tie in with a Whitley accident over there early in the war. At R A F Portreath there is a VERY corroded Spitfire prop on a plinth near the entrance.However i believe this came from a 11 group (92 Squadron aircraft).
At Flambards theme park there are still some engines (British,American,and German) and other parts from a variety of machines (several trawled up).
For many years at Newlyn there also was a ‘dump’ of aircraft bits that had been trawled up including several props and associated parts.
And slightly more up to date and also local i saw a Seneca fuselage at our local metal recycling yard yesterday (pranged on Scilly) (An ideal cockpit-fest project).

Bombgone

No, not gliding now, to my regret. It doesn’t sit well with the demands of family and sad to say the Cornish Gliding (& Flying) Club no longer operates at Perranporth.

I do have a lot of fun with this flight simulator gliding group though, and perhaps one day I’ll get airborne for real again:

www.ukvga.org

Best wishes,

Phil

Thank you for the Video link Soggy. Very well put together and moving accounts. The site looks well overgrown now, the pond must now be in the undergrowth. I would think there is still some small items around, we did not have time to sift through the big pile of clay from the hole before running out of time the site had to be made good by the Sunday evening.

I think that is a nice touch you leaving a poppy at the site. I haven’t heard from Mr hood for years now cant make contact.

BTW. Are you still into gliding? Used to myself back in the 1970’s.

Pagen, yes, that’s right, Bob Andrew, wrote the history of RAF Trevellas I think… ?

The Beaufighter, JM111 HO-?

http://youtu.be/65fowNB9R2k?t=5m42s

Sgt D T Richie is buried in Illogan Churchyard.

Great to see some tangible information regarding this crash site recovery. I seem to remember something about the cannons being found and recovered.
My father was (still is) a nature warden for the area, hence regular visits to the site, beautifully peaceful and secluded place, particularly in the summer with the smell of heather and gorse.

Sorry Soggy, missed your earlier question, the chap you mentioned might have been Bob Andrew who was from the area and is without doubt the foremost aviation historian for the area, especially of Perranporth airfield.
Very nice and helpful chap, though he must be getting on now though. Dr Strangelove will know how he is, If needed I can pass on contact details by PM.
Nice to know that someone still remembers and marks the site of the loss.

BTW, what is the identity of the Beaufighter?

Thank you Jason and Bombgone for that information, both very ‘well put’, and we can well imagine the difficulty of recovering deeply buried remains from soft wet ground during war-time.

I still visit the site usually in the Autumn and leave a poppy there, as from what I was told by my Father who farmed advacently, I continue to believe that it was and still is a war grave if not officially said to be so.

Makes me proper sad to think about it, so much sacrifice.

Oh forgot to mention. On receiving permission from the MOD To excavate the site. We also learned that remains of the crew were recovered and given a full military burial at the time.
Otherwise they would not have granted permission.

The crash site was a ‘war grave’?

Really?

I was on this dig with DARRT in the 1970’s and remember it well. Fortunately the farmer and the locals where very enthusiastic too. The problem was the site was just on the other side of the hedge in National trust property. Having consulted them they wanted a pond there, so ideal, There was an excavator on site as the farmer was having a drainage system dug in his field. The excavator driver was very enthusiastic to do the dig.

You could see the the fuel on the surface but as the digger got to work the stench of fuel was overwhelming. The propellers recovered at 25 ft. Though badly smashed the engines etc were in soft clay and washed off in like new condition. we recovered a lorry load from the site. My prize was one of the Carburetors which I stripped down cleaned and mounted as sectional view. Very impressive piece of engineering.

Have to say the farmer, the digger driver, and the locals were absolutely fantastic. We asked the farmer where we could hire a lorry? Don’t know he said. But I’ve got one you could borrow. We offered, but he would not except payment, not even for the fuel.

The digger driver even kept in touch with the group asking when the next dig would be.

Didn’t get any thing like this on the Devon Digs.

I remember the excavation of the Ventongimps beaufighter crash site. I knew Mr George Grigg very well as a close family friend and he told me about the crash when they were doing the excavation many years ago, (as reported in ‘The West Briton’ newspaper in 1977 as I recall). Mr Grigg was first on scene after the crash, the cause of which remains unknown. The aircrew were apparently killed in the crash and there was at the time some confusion at the time as to wether the bodies were recovered immediately after the crash in 1944 or that they were unable to be recovered due to the resulting explosion. The Beaufighter was believed to have taken off from nearby Perranporth airfield.

Unless you know exactly where to look, the site of the crash is not easy to find, is only accessible by crossing private land, and is around half a mile from the nearest road. The crash site itself is in small overgrown wooded area covered in thorns and thistles which you need to fight your way through. At the centre of the site is a large pond which formed immediatley after the 1977 excavation. As I recall, the recovered parts of the aircraft were reburied in 1977 after the partial excavation as it is a war grave.

pagen01 Thanks for the quick reply, I have already checked the list you suggested but due to my lack of information i couldn’t really pin my father in-laws crash down to one particular incident, i don’t have any dates to work with so i realize it’s not an easy ask.

Hiya Pagen. I lived just a mile up the road from Ventongimps towards the A30 until I was 18. As a kid I was told by my Father, a farmer, that a “Spitfire” crashed in the moor, and that it was ‘still there’ as it had ‘gone down in the mash (marsh)’

Father had heard it in its final dive. Farmer, and Home Guard soldier Mr Mewton (of Marazanvose) also told me that he was posted to guard the site. Another neighbour, farmer Mr George Grigg (now deceased) was working in the adjacent field and was soon on the scene, and attended the 1980’s dig too.

Well, like you, I was all over that moor looking for it; this would have been in the ’60s.

Some years ago I wrote to Flypast magazine and got published a request for information about the Ventongimps Beaufighter crash, before I knew of this forum of course.

A chap whose name I shamefully forget (Mr Andrew perhaps?) kindly contacted me and told me that he was a boy in Ventongimps when it happened and visited the site on his return home from school. He described the scene as one of complete devastation. I think that at least one member of the crew is interred in Illogan cemetary. Please see this wonderful series of 6 tribute videos to the fallen who are interred in Illogan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G1u-ww_AdY

Anyway, I duly left the County to try and make a living, and was later told that the Devon aviation archaeology folk had been asked or at least authorised by the Cornwall Trust for Nature Conservation to excavate and remove material that was still causing polution.

Mr Grigg remembered Mr Hood, and described to me the very hard work required to extract the material.

If you are ever up for a walk out through the Moor again I’d be glad to join you.

I wonder if Mr Hood would please consider telling us a little of the outcome of his excavation, in so far as what was recovered, and whether it is still in his collection?

Phil

v6tek, I can’t help directly but the excellent Davidstow online crash log might help you, http://www.rafdavidstowmoor.org/pages/crash_log/crashlog40.html
Unfortunately you have very little information to go on, so you will probably have to scan through the whole log and identify an accident as most similar to the one you are looking into. Any ideas on dates etc?

D1566, sorry just seen your post. I regularly visited the Ventongimps site when I was a kid (it was a wildlife reserve then), my understanding was that large chunks of the Beaufighter (from Perranporth/Portreath?) were recovered by a group hoping to display the items. I did see small fragments of propeller and airframe in the clay type mud.
Would also be interested to hear what became of the dig.

After reading this thread i am hoping someone will pick up on this post and give me a little advice and possibly point me in the right direction.
I have very little information regarding my request but here is what i do know.
My wife’s father was the sole survivor of a plane crash during the ww2, my understanding was he was in the navy and would not normally be in the air, so what he was doing in this plane i don’t know, the plane came down in the Bude area of Cornwall in a farmers field there was 3 crew on board, the farmer saw the crash and managed to pull my father in-law out before the plane was engulfed in flames and was unable to get the two other crew out, the father in-law was badly injured and spent some considerable time in hospital in Plymouth.
I have no idea what type of plane this was and realize this is not much to go on, unfortunately the father in-law has passed on and no other living relative who can help, any thoughts would be much appreciated.

the Ventongimps Beaufighter dig in the early ’80s being perhaps the best known dig.

I lived a mile or so from there in the ’70s! Any further info available on it? (have tried Googling!)

and what about THE Stirling?????

Me 109E-7

Please go to our website here;
http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.com/luftwaffelosses/luftwaffelosses1942.html

07.01.1942 1./(F)123 Messerschmitt Bf 109E-7 Wnr.4970 Uffz Thuene
to read more and view a picture of its pilot!

Regards

Melvin

www.aircrewremembrancesociety.com

Better take some spades with you!

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=63452&highlight=Downderry+Chain+Home+station