David Earl wrote a superb account of this incident in his "Hell on High Ground" book though the events of exactly what happened are not really known. On 1st January 1942 this aircraft had just been allotted to 60 OTU based at East Fortune airfield and was being flown on its delivery flight possibly taking off from Squires Gate airfield just after midday. The aircraft flew into poor weather over southern side of the Lake District as it headed north and the pilot had probably become lost while flying through cloud, to locate his position he probably descended over high ground but flying roughly west to east at the time. The aircraft struck the ground between the hills of Sallows and Sour Howes around 14.00hrs and sadly the pilot was killed and the aircraft was destroyed. Dave Earl reports in his book that much of the aircraft was buried on site by the RAF MU team who "cleared" crash sites during the War but in the 1980s the site was excavated by a civilian group and many of their finds were later on show in the Millom Air Museum but since its closure in 2011 it is not known where the items are now located.
The aircraft is credited elsewhere as simply flying into the wall along the ridge between Sallows and Sour Howes, this is not actually the case as it appears to have first struck the ground around twenty metres away on the Troutbeck side of the wall. It first struck grass and then more severely it first hit a low rock out-crop where I found a few small fragments of the aircraft in 2013. The Wainwright track between Sallows and Sour Howes then passes through the crash site and a couple of shallow boggy holes next to the track are probably connected with the crash and could be where the MU team buried some wreckage, further small fragments of the aircraft were located between the track and the wall. The wall must have been damaged but it has been rebuilt to a high standard and the damage is not really noticable today. After a short walk around to the other side of the wall we found a number of small pieces of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine scattered down the Kentmere side of the fellside for around a hundred metres but there hardly any airframe parts at the other side of the wall. This suggests that the aircraft had crashed on the Troutbeck side of the wall and much of the aircraft remained there, the force of the impact with the rock and then the wall probably caused the engine to break away and then be shattered, with it being underpower at the time it seems to have completely disintergrated with the impact with the rock and then the wall and parts of it continued on the direction of flight for some distance.
Pilot - Sgt "Hiram Wolf" RCAF (R/77476), aged 24. Buried Rainsough Jewish Cemetery, Prestwich, Lancashire.
"Hiram Wolf" was an alias for Julius V Greenberg. Through research by Ellin Bessner and Patrick McKeon I learn that Julius had attempted to enlist for USAAF service as an Aviation Cadet in 1940 but was rejected as he had no college education and at that time it was required to enlist. He then sought help from two friends and took The US Census's spell his surname "Wolfe" for his early life. He was born on 2nd July 1917 on Peaks Island, Portland, Maine, USA and was the son of William and Dora (née Rosenthal) Wolfe. William Wolfe's parents were both born in Russia but had moved to the USA. In the 1920 census young Hiram was living with his parents, grandparents and other family in Cumberland, Maine, in 1930 he was living with his parents and brother Arnold B Wolfe in Bristol, Massachusetts but they later moved to Boston by the 1940 Census. His parents are credited in the online obituary as living in Los Angeles by 1942. He married Dorothy Frances Clough on 20th September 1941 who was living in Worcester, Massachusetts when he died. He had attended Roxbury Memorial High School, Boston and enlisted into the RCAF before the USA entered the War. Entry into the Rainsough Cemetery is allowed through a code-protected gate and I thank the staff for their co-operation in locating his gravestone.
A general overview of the crash site as seen from Sour Howes looking north.
The aircraft first struck the ground on the right of the photograph and crashed through the wall to the left.
One of a number of fragments of engine casing found on the eastern side of the crash site where the engine must have ended up.
Fragmentry evidence at the crash site but tiny pieces of Defiant nonetheless. The lack of virtually anything left on the surface has resulted in this incident being one of the lesser known incidents on high ground in the Lake District.
An MoD licence to excavate / recover items from the site was granted on 3rd March 1993. I would welcome contact from anyone involved and would love to see any photographs of items found and recovered.