During the evening of 17th November 1944 the crew of this aircraft left their base of Jurby on the Isle of Man for a navigation exercise. Little is currently known about the events of this night but the aircraft found it over the Keswick area at around 21.00hrs. From both the pilot's account of the incident (found in Michael Hurst's book on Lakeland Air Accidents) and the evidence found on the ground in 2012, that the aircraft had flown over the village of Braithwaite and up Coledale in poor visibility, the pilot realised that he was flying too low to avoid high ground at the head of the valley so pulled the aircraft into a steep climbing turn. The aircraft must have struck the steep side of Grisedale Pike with it's belly for many of the crew to have survived the accident that followed. A head-on crash would have surely resulted in all the crew being killed. Three of the crew were found to be injured while the fourth sadly died before he could be found. The injured were taken to Mark Hewitts Hospital in Keswick. At the crash site in 2012 there is evidence of a fire, this could have been the result of the crashing aircraft or from the RAF salvage team burning sections of the aircraft on the site which they deemed un-worthy of recovering.
Pilot - F/O Robert William Bradford RCAF (J/37452), of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Seriously injured.
Wireless Operator - F/Sgt William Edward Craber RAF (1399418). Injured.
Pupil Navigator - AC2 R T Myatt RAF (1816115). Injured.
Pupil Navigator - LAC Elwyn Morgan RAFVR (964106), aged 29, of Drefach, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Buried Drefach Chapelyard, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
LAC Morgan is listed on CWGC as serving with 1 Squadron at the time of his death. No.1 Squadron were a fighter squadron which, I do not see 1 Squadron having any use in having trainee or newly trained navigators in their numbers, it seems likely that he had been serving with 1 Squadron as a member of ground crew and was possibly re-training to be aircrew at the time of this accident in the Lake District. His name is spelt Elwin on the deaths index.
Grisedale Pike is the mountain on the right of the photograph shown above and the aircraft is believed to have flown up the valley in the centre of this photograph, taken from Latrigg on a better day two days after my visit to the crash site.
This photograph shows the side of Grisedale Pike where the aircraft crashed into, taken from the area of Coledale Hause on a slightly better day in 2009 before the mine on the bottom right of the photograph re-opened.
I visited the crash site in very poor weather in April 2012 with experienced mountaineer, and now air historian, Mr Ade Harris. He located the site in during a spell of excellent weather in March 2012. We had both made several failed attempts at trying to locate the site in the previous decade. The photograph above shows a selection of small parts still at the crash site.
This circular piece of glass is probably the glass from the front of a flying instrument from the cockpit of the Anson, it is remarkable that this remains unbroken after nearly seventy years on the mountain with the shifting scree on which the wreckage lays.
Anson MG464 was delivered as new to 5 AOS during the last week of September 1943. As a result of the crash on 17th November 1944 Cat.E damage was the damage assessment and it was struck off charge on 23rd November 1944.