Wellington DV600 on High Doat, Borrowdale.
On the night of the 4th/5th September 1942 the crew in this aircraft took off at 21.00hrs to
undertake a night cross-country training flight. Details of the incident are currently very vague but
while flying over the mountains of the Lake District in poor weather the aircraft flew into the ground
at 22.30hrs. It is currently not known whether the aircraft was in level flight at the time or whether
it dived into the ground after control had been lost. The aircraft crashed onto the steep-sloped hill named
High Doat; the wooded hillside is known locally as Johnny Wood and is between the small
villages of Seatoller and Rosthwaite some five miles down the Borrowdale valley from Keswick.
River levels at the time of the accident were much higher than normal and this made any rescue attempt
difficult. The RAF had difficulty even getting to Keswick because of the increased height of the
River Derwent but it is believed that all of the crew were killed when it dived
into the wood and there would have been very little chance of any of them surviving the crash.
The modern roads along the side of Borrowdale and further afield between Keswick and Cockermouth have
changed greatly in the last seventy years, at the time of this accident the road system was more liable
to flooding than today. Despite more modern road improvement schemes prolonged heavy rain in the mountains
that feed streams that flow into the River Derwent can severely effect the local road network as was proven
during a mountain-running event in 2007 which received national news interest. Because Johnny Wood is on one
side of the river and the road system of Borrowdale being on the other then crossing over the river becomes difficult
except for the more specialised vehicles even today. Many of the worst floods in the area have been recorded locally,
with this date not being one of them it would seem not to have been a severe flood in the terms of what locals had seen
and was possibly at a level they were used to at the time following a period of heavy rain.
Johnny Wood is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is in the care of the National Trust. Access is permitted so long as
nothing is done to damage any of the wildlife that exists in the wood. Although the SSSI designations
were not introduced until 1981 it seems likely that the wood was recognised as important many years before
that date. The crash site would also appear to have been very thoroughly cleared and this, combined with leaf fall, moss and
grass any small pieces of the aircraft are well covered and are hard to
locate today. During an arguably equally poor day in July 2010 myself and Will Lund found two small peices of
the aircraft while "passing" through the woodland during a walk with our wives. With the weather being so poor we limited any search
and I return to the site a year later on a good day.
On the same night 25 OTU lost another aircraft, that of Wellington X3940 near Tadcaster in Yorkshire and a loss detailed
on the main Yorkshire pages to this website, sadly two airmen being lost in this incident.
Pilot – F/Sgt William Bruce Sage RCAF (R/105629), aged 19, of Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. Buried Silloth Cemetery, Cumbria.
Observer – F/Sgt George Edward Derbyshire RCAF (R/102185), aged 33, of Willows, Saskatchewan, Canada. Buried Silloth Cemetery, Cumbria.
Observer (/Bomb Aimer) – Sgt Jack Lionel “Jacob” Brovender RCAF (R/90611), aged ? Of Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Buried Layton Jewish Cemetery, Blackpool, Lancashire.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner – F/Sgt James Anderson RCAF (R/92541), aged 21, of Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Buried Silloth Cemetery, Cumbria.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner – Sgt Henry Brown Burnett RAFVR (652923), aged 20, of Biggar, South Lanarkshire. Buried Culter Churchyard, Biggar, Lanarkshire.
The five airmen sadly killed in this accident, left to right are F/Sgt Sage, F/Sgt Derbyshire, Sgt Brovender, F/Sgt Anderson and Sgt Burnett.
Gravestones of three of the crew, their bodies were taken to the nearest RAF station of Silloth and buried locally to Silloth at Causewayhead Cemetery.
Ted Derbyshire was born on 17th March 1909 in Moose Jaw but his parents to the Zenith district, east of Assiniboia the following year.
Ted was a teacher at Burstall, Borderland and Weybridge Scholls and enlisted on 10th May 1941 in Regina. He was married with two young children.
Johnny Wood is the woodland shown across the centre of this photograph above. The woodland reaches virtually to the top of
High Doat which this photograph does not clearly show. High Scawdell is the much larger mountain behind High Doat and is often
incorrectly refered to as being the crash location.
The two peices of the aircraft I located in July 2010, the peice of perspex was only spotted because the rain
landing on it was making it shine from some distance and the metal part was found nearby. While the metal part looks
similar to that found by and depicted on Alan Clark's "Peak District aircraft accidents" website at the site three
years ago I find it remarkable we may have found the same peice of the aircraft given neither of us exchanged
information to the where-abouts of this peice.
I would suggest that the aircraft crashed into or very close to this crag shown on the photograph above.
Some of the peices found at the crash site.
A typical Wellington part number sequence found on one of the peices at the site in April 2011.
I would like to thank Ms Kay Burnett for contacting me and allowing me to show the photographs of all five airmen sadly lost in the accident
in Borrowdale. I believe that this is the first time these photographs have been seen in the public. It appears that all the families
corresponded following notification of the deaths of these airmen and the series of photographs was compiled.
In April 2011 I returned to the woodland on a perfect sunny day to conduct a further search of the woodland with the aim of
identifying the crash site location. Because of the thick woodland the GPS was not working correctly though I was able to return to
my initial finds. Many more peices of the aircraft were found nearby which would suggest that this was near or the crash location.
The photographs shown below show some of these finds and their location.
