During the evening of 15th November 1943 the crew of this aircraft took off from Crosby on Eden airfield to undertake a night navigation exercise with No.9 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit. During the flight 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 at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and was the son of Edwin Hammond and Ida Bealah (nee Graves) Sollows. He lived in Nova Scotia until he was seventeen years old and then moved to Hamilton, Ontario where he began a college course and also started work as an apprentice engineer. He enlisted for RCAF service at Hamilton on 23rd October 1941 and after training he was awarded his flying badge on 15th January 1943. He was posted to the UK in July 1943, arriving at No.9 (C)OTU on 14th September 1943. He was one of three brothers who served in the RCAF. The photograph of him shown above was found on "rcafcentralia.blogspot.co.uk".
Little is known about Marc Lahausse. A passenger list for a ship containing RAF volunteers from Maurutius, leaving Durban for Liverpool lists him travelling in September 1941 and that he had been working as a clerk.
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 cases.