On 15th November 1943 the crew of this aircraft were undertaking a night navigation exercise when the aircraft flew into high ground to the east of Keswick
at Wolf Crags at around 21.10hrs. Both airmen were killed as a result of the accident. Little else about the incident is known at the time of creating this webpage.
Pilot - F/Sgt Ivan Steen Sollows RCAF (R/139005), aged 20, of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Buried Blacon Cemetery, Cheshire.
Navigator - Sgt Marc Jean Lahausse RAFVR (1515183), aged 27, of Rose Hill, Mauritus. Buried Blacon Cemetery, Cheshire.
Ivan Sollows was known by his middle name of Steen, he was born on 21st August 1923 and was one of three brothers in the RCAF. He enlisted into the RCAF at the age of seventeen. The photograph of him shown above was found on "rcafcentralia.blogspot.co.uk".
Wolf Crags as seen from Clough Head in May 2012. I first visited the area of this accident in April 2011 and located only one small fragment of the aircraft.
Military historian Ade Harris and I re-visited the crash site in May 2012 and located a number of small fragments of the aircraft in a boggy area on top of
Wolf Crags and in amongst rocks towards the base of the crags. The aircraft crashed into the grassy part of the hillside above the crag on the photograph shown above.
Wolf Crag as seen from the Old Coach Road.
This was the first piece of the aircraft that I found in April 2011.
In Michael Hurst's book "Air Crashes in the Lake District" he shows a photograph that he credits to be a collection of parts from Anson N5053 on nearby Great Dodd,
I would politely question if this is correct as the area in the photograph appears to be the Wolf Crags area. The piece of wreckage shown above is also the same as
one shown in a blurred photograph in the same book which is correctly credited as being of Beaufighter parts.
A good sign of a Beaufighter crash site is the find of 20mm cannon shells which are very common at a Beaufighter crash sites.
