Before WW1 no flying had ever occurred over Wales, except for the non-mechanical floating of hot-air balloons (a spectacle that instigated Wales’ first fatal air accident in 1896 – see this article). Mountainous topography plus the poor visibility caused by air pollution in the industrial areas made Wales too perilous for pioneer aviators, but with German U-boats increasingly hunting for shipping in the Atlantic Ocean and the Celtic Sea, the Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS, formed 1914) established bases on Wales’ west coast and the long litany of aerial disasters began. Here, in chronological order, is a catalogue of the plane crashes in Welsh territory that resulted in at least one fatality.

●My approach to place-names is outlined here. For clarity, the name not being used is given in brackets after the place’s first mention

●The locations of air bases and airfields in England, Ireland and Scotland are given on their first mention only and are not usually described further

1912
■Aviation enthusiast Damer Allen from Limerick was attempting to become the first to fly across the Irish Sea when he set off for Dublin from Holyhead in a Blériot monoplane. It was not to be: the plane very quickly plunged into the sea off the Ynys Môn coast. Just four days later another Irishman, Allen’s friend Denys Wilson, became the first to make the crossing (from Goodwick in Pembrokeshire to Enniscorthy in Wexford). Allen’s body was never found.

1916
■A Sea Scout airship from the RNAS airship station at Llangefni (opened 1915, closed 1920, re-commissioned as RAF Mona in 1941) was badly damaged when attempting to land. Out of control, it was blown into the sea near Holyhead. The pilot was rescued but the only other person on board, English Air Mechanic James Young, drowned in the non-rigid blimp’s tangled wreckage.

1917
■At the brand new RNAS Fishguard Harbour in Goodwick (closed 1919), a Sopwith seaplane banked on take-off and smacked into the cliff. The bombs it was carrying promptly exploded, completely wrecking the plane. The severely burnt pilot, Richard Bush from Bristol, was taken to the nearby Fishguard Bay Hotel where he died two days later.

■The inadequacy of the hastily-assembled Sea Scout airships again proved fatal when one based at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Pembroke Dock hit a farm building on the coast when trying to achieve altitude, disintegrated and drifted out to sea. The two Londoners on the airship could not escape and both John Cripps and Joseph Simpson drowned in the Haven waterway.

1918
■A Hamble Baby, a single-seat floatplane for a one-man crew manufactured by the Fairey company in Hamble Hampshire, ran out of fuel when on a patrol from Fishguard Harbour and crash-landed in the sea just off Ynys Teifi in Cardigan Bay. Cyril Duckworth from London, only 18, drowned. His body was never recovered.

■Classic WW1 biplane bomber the De Havilland 9 was on a training exercise from pioneer RAF base Shawbury in Shropshire when it stalled on a low turn, crashed and caught fire in a field near Hawarden in Flintshire. One of the two-man crew survived but George Roper did not. An American from Ohio, only a month earlier he had joined the newly established RAF – previously the Royal Flying Corps, formed in 1912 as part of the Army, it amalgamated with the RNAS to become the RAF in April 1918.

■Based at the new RAF Bangor (opened 1918, closed 1919), a De Havilland 6 on sea patrol went missing after engine failure off the Gwynedd coast. Flying solo, 19-year-old John Johnstone from Glasgow was never found.

■Another De Havilland 6 from RAF Bangor came a cropper in the countryside outside the city after stalling. Captain Desmond Tuck was seriously injured but survived but mechanic Ely Shaw, an 18-year-old from Halifax, died in the impact.

1931
■After WW1 ended in 1918, the skies over Wales fell silent again. RAF bases closed and the UK’s infant aviation industry shifted its emphasis to leisure flying from private airfields, strictly for the wealthy. One of the first private aerodromes in Wales was at Pengam on the wild, desolate saltings and mudflats of Cardiff’s East Moors – land where vanguard Welsh aviator Ernest Willows (1886-1926) had built his first airship in 1905. It opened in September 1931 and within three months had chalked up a crash when an Avro Avian owned by Vera Brailey left Pengam for a joyride with the pilot and one passenger on board. The biplane spun into the ground after attempting a loop 10 miles west near St Lythans. The plane was a write-off, passenger Oliver Evans was badly injured and pilot Cecil Baker was killed.

1935
■Western Airways ran a successful passenger service for businessmen between Bristol (Whitchurch) and Cardiff (Pengam) in the 1930s – the 20 minute flight across the Severn being considerably quicker than the journey by both road and rail – but there were risks, as when a De Havilland Dragon dived into the Severn near the mouth of the River Rhymni when descending on the approach to Pengam, killing the pilot John Mansfield and the two passengers Roland Edbrooke and Harold Percival.

1936
■Owned by Maurice King of Norwich, a three-seater Eagle light aircraft attempted aerobatics in the countryside north of Cardiff with King himself at the controls. It hit telegraph wires, went into a nosedive, smashed into the ground only just missing houses on Wenallt Road, Rhiwbina, and burst into flames. King plus passengers TJ Berg of Dinas Powys and Harold Elwell, who actually lived in Wenallt Road and was an RAF reserve Flying Officer who should have known better, all died instantly. Elwell’s wife and daughter witnessed the horror as local people dragged the mutilated bodies from the wreckage.

1937
■Carrying out a daytime flying exercise in a Hawker Hart bi-plane from RAF Sealand (established 1916) in Flintshire, Arthur Simpson from Lancashire failed to return. The following day a shepherd discovered the wreckage containing Simpson’s corpse on Mynydd Esclus, part of the Clwydian Range. The plane had dived into the moorland at such speed that much of it was embedded in the ground.

■Broom Hall was a private airfield near Pwllheli developed for the use of William Prys Evans by his father Lt-Col Owen Lloyd-Jones-Evans (a former Commanding Officer in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers). He bought William, a leading light in the Pwllheli & District Gliding Club, his own De Havilland Hornet Moth to practice flying and gliding, but the heir of Broom Hall mansion (originally Werglodd Fawr) flew it slap bang into a stone wall and died aged 32. In 1946 Billy Butlin (1899-1980) bought the estate and for a while used the airfield to fly people to his holiday camp. Pwllheli Butlins, closed in 2000, is now the less intrusive Hafan y Môr caravan park while the airfield is farmland again.

■A De Havilland Tiger Moth from the Liverpool Aero Club at Speke crashed onto the beach at Talacre at the mouth of the Afon Dyfrdwy (River Dee) in Flintshire and caught fire. The pilot escaped but the passenger, 19-year-old Liverpudlian Frank Blenkin, did not.

■On a training flight in an Avro Tutor, Leonard Hopkirk and Walter Jackson had strayed far from their home base at RAF Netheravon in Wiltshire when the plane’s wing hit the firm sands of the Dwyryd Estuary at Penrhyndeudraeth in Gwynedd while trying to turn. The resulting fire killed Jackson, only 22, while Hopkirk got out alive.

■In July an Aeronca light aircraft from Peterborough en route to Ireland’s Baldonnel Aerodrome (renamed Casement Aerodrome in 1965) plummeted into the sea just west of Holyhead. Richard de Cruce Grubb, an RAF test pilot and minor aristocrat, died at age 22 and was never found.

■All three on board died when an Avro Anson from RAF Bircham Newton in Norfolk stalled when trying to avoid the cliffs at Penmaenbach near Conwy. The plane dived into the sea and that was the end for William Rimer, Michael Kirwan and Kenneth Butcher.

■More and more the RAF was treating Wales as nothing more than a giant training ground, an attitude that has not ceased to this day. One of the many awful consequences of this policy was an exponential increase in accidents. Another occurred in November 1937 when a Hawker Audax two-seat bomber that had flown all the way from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire smacked into a wall at Y Ffôr on the Llŷn Peninsula when forced to land in fog. Pilot Albert Wright was killed, but the other occupant John Goodinson survived his injuries.

1938
■A Sunderland Flying Boat based at RAF Pembroke Dock (established 1930 to slightly mitigate the 1926 closure of the 1814 Royal Navy Dockyard) broke up at night when landing in choppy seas on the Milford Haven waterway. Two of the eight-man crew drowned: Cyril Clayton (30) and Ronald Narbett (29). The other six were rescued, four of them completely unhurt.

■Three men in a Fairey Battle light bomber were on a demanding long-distance training flight from RAF Harwell in Berkshire to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) when bad weather descended and the pilot lost his bearings over the great mass of Pumlumon in central Wales. The plane smashed into Pumlumon Cwmbiga, one of the mountain’s five peaks, and Alistair MacEwan, Frank James and Kenneth Clark were all killed.

■Just five days later two Hawker Audax bombers from RAF Tern Hill in Shropshire collided head-on in mid-air during bombing practice above Porth Neigwl, a beautiful remote beach on Llŷn (ignorantly named ‘Hell’s Mouth’ by English colonial types). One of the pilots, Robert Meharey, jumped and landed safely by parachute while the other pilot, Thomas Dunn, also jumped but his parachute was torn on the tail and he broke his neck. John Cooper and Ronald Hart, the bomb aimers from each plane, both fell 6,000 ft to their deaths.

During WW2 (1939-1945) the number of fatal plane crashes increased enormously. In the following section the names and details of the victims during this period are generally not included to save space

1939
■On a training exercise, an Avril Anson from RAF Ansty in Warwickshire encountered bad weather and crashed into the imposing sandstone slab of Fan Brycheiniog just inside Breconshire near Ystradgynlais. Two of the four men on the plane died. Somehow or other, the other two walked away with hardly a scratch.

■With War declared on the 1st of September after years of British appeasement of Hitler, the whole UK economy entered national emergency mode. In the first ‘phoney war’ stage, while immense rearmament, enlistment, evacuation, rationing and mass manufacture of weapons, bombs, ships and aircraft went into overdrive, the RAF stepped up its training to new levels and the number of crashes rose inexorably. On September 12th a Harvard Warbird, one of thousands supplied by the US, crashed into the sea off Pwllheli while on a training exercise from Tern Hill. Both men on board perished in the water.

■In the worst ever air crash yet to occur in Wales, the entire 10-man crew of an RAF Pembroke Dock Sunderland died when the flying boat ran out of fuel off St Ann’s Head at the entrance to Milford Haven and crashed into the turbulent deep waters in the pitch dark night. Those not killed by the impact drowned.

■A Miles Master advanced training aircraft from RAF Sealand spun out of control in October and disintegrated in scrubland at Burton near Wrecsam. The two men aboard didn’t stand a chance.

■Setting off from RAF Carew Cheriton in Pembrokeshire (opened in 1939), a Fairey Battle’s engine almost immediately failed and the plane crashed into the tidal mill on the riverbank near Carew Castle and burst into flames, killing all three airmen.

■One of the great fighter aircrafts of WW2, the Hurricane, flew into the Severn (Hafren) seashore at night just a mile south of RAF St Athan (established 1938) where it was based. The lone pilot struggled in vain to free himself from the sinking wreckage.

■On November 18th a Harvard from Tern Hill crashed near Llangurig in Montgomeryshire when attempting a forced landing and the solo-flyer died in the impact.

■The disgusting RAF Penrhos was a bombing school established in 1936 at Penyberth Farm on Llŷn in the face of massive opposition from Welsh people from all walks of life because of Penyberth’s central place in Welsh culture, history, religion, idiom and literature. The British government refused to even receive a deputation from Wales to hear their case and, with cruel relish, demolished Penyberth. The chickens started to come home to roost for the bombing school when a Handley Page Harrow bomber attempted to take off with all the control locks still engaged and slammed into the ground. Two died.

■Five days later on November 24th the curse of Penrhos struck again when two Fairey Battle bombers collided in poor visibility just after take off, killing all those aboard – three from each plane. RAF Penrhos was eventually closed down after the War in 1946; today there’s a caravan park on the site.

1940
■In bad visibility, a Lockheed Hudson from RAF St Athan hit Mynydd Maendy above Nantymoel in the Ogwr valley with the loss of all five people on board.

■On January 19th an Avro Anson from RAF Hooton Park in Cheshire crashed on the foreshore between Prestatyn and Rhyl during a snowstorm. Of the four on board, one died immediately, two others died slowly from their injuries in the freezing weather, and the pilot’s injuries were so severe that when he died in 1958 his death certificate attributed them as the cause of death.

■Two died when their Westland Wallace biplane from RAF Penrhos crashed shortly after take off at Y Ffôr.

■A week later another Wallace from the Penrhos bombing school didn’t last long, ditching into the sea at Pwllheli when the engine failed and killing the pilot.

■The body-count kept on rising as a Hawker Henley from RAF Stormy Down (established in 1939) came to grief when it stalled, crashed into the rocky coast near Rest Bay, Porthcawl and promptly exploded. The two occupants were killed instantaneously.

■Departing RAF Shawbury accompanied by two other planes, a Bristol Blenheim bomber broke away from the formation when it entered thick cloud cover in Wales and promptly collided with Foel Wen, one of the high peaks in the Berwyn Range. The crew of three all died. Debris from the crash is still strewn across the summit of Foel Wen.

■Five died when an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber from RAF Dishforth in Yorkshire on a night training exercise disappeared without trace about 10 miles south of Milford Haven in the Celtic Sea. The bodies were stashed away forever in Davy Jones’s Locker.

■On April 8th a Bristol Blenheim in a three plane formation from RAF Bicester in Oxfordshire, got lost on a training flight to the Isle of Man and flew into Craig yr Ysfa, an amphitheatre of rock in the stunning Carneddau mountains of Eryri. It seems the pilot was dazzled by the sun when emerging from a bank of cloud. The violent impact killed all four on board. Rusting remnants of wreckage, including the engine and the undercarriage, are still scattered around the craggy ravines.

■In May a Blenheim from RAF Upwood in Huntingdonshire crashed into Tremadog Bay at night while on a navigation exercise. The three-man crew all died.

■Another Blenheim from Bicester met catastrophe in Wales in late June. Attempting a forced landing near Bosherston (Llanfihangel-clogwyn-gofan) in Pembrokeshire after engine failure, it hit a stone wall, flipped over and broke up, killing two while the third occupant was badly injured but survived.

■Five men were aboard an Avro Anson from RAF Harwell when navigation went awry and it flew into Y Gamrhiw, a peak in the eastern Cambrian Mountains near Llanwrthwl in Radnorshire. Four died, but the seriously injured pilot dragged himself across the sparsely populated high moorlands until he found help.

■The intrinsic danger of flying in this era of untried technology, undertrained young airmen and the extreme pressures of war was illustrated by a collision at RAF Carew Cheriton. Ascending after take off, an Avro Anson hit a Fairey Battle, went into an uncontrolled descent, crashed near the runway and burst into flames. The two RAF officers on board died whereas three passengers all survived with minor injuries and there were no casualties on the Fairey.

■At the start of August a Handley Page Hampden bomber from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, returning from a mine-laying mission around the German Frisian Islands, ditched into Cardigan Bay near Aberystwyth. Two of the four-man crew died and the other two were rescued by local boats.

■On September the 13th the first fatal air crash in Wales involving a German plane wreaked havoc in the centre of Newport. One of nine Heinkels that had departed together from Rennes in France with the intention of bombing western UK docks had successfully completed an attack on Ellesmere Port and was heading south to Cardiff when it flew into a barrage balloon cable at Newport, crashed into a house on Stow Park Avenue and exploded. Three of the four-man crew died, but pilot Harry Wappler managed to make a parachute descent, landing in a tree and breaking his arm. He was immediately captured and taken to nearby St Woolos Hospital and was a prisoner of war (PoW) for the rest of the conflict, firstly in Cumbria and then Canada. There was tragedy at 32 Stow Park Avenue where two teenage siblings Malcolm Phillips (17) and Myrtle Phillips (14) were killed in the inferno. Their parents escaped with minor injuries and had the extraordinary decency to visit Wappler in Hospital on the same day to forgive him for the death of their children. Wappler died in Germany in 1985 and his wife and daughter later visited Newport to see the crash site. The rebuilt house looks noticeably different to the neighbouring Edwardian buildings.

■A Handley Page Hampden from RAF Pembrey on the Carmarthenshire coast (opened 1939) suffered engine failure, stalled and crashed into the tidal marshlands of the River Gwendraeth near Cydweli, killing all four men on board.

■With the Battle of Britain raging in southern England, a German Air Force (GAF) Dornier reconnaissance aircraft from the French air base at Châteaudun, seized by Germany earlier in 1940, was assessing bomb damage in Liverpool when it was spotted by a Spitfire fighter, chased into Wales and shot down over Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd. Three of the four-man crew survived to become PoWs while one was killed.

■On September 22nd a Blenheim bomber from RAF Upwood flew into the summit of Mynydd Garn Wen, near Abersychan in Gwent, when navigating on instruments alone in bad visibility. All three on board were killed.

■A Dornier from GAF Lannion airfield in Brittany, controlled by the Luftwaffe from July 1940 to June 1944, was shot down into Cardigan Bay near Ynys Enlli by coastal artillery and one German died. Concentrating on south-east England, few German fighter planes ventured into Wales throughout the War – which is a pity, because it means I am denied the chance to make a crude and predictable pun about Fokkers…

■The pilot and sole occupant died when he inadvertently crashed a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden (established 1939) into a field south of Abergele in Denbighshire.

■ In late October a Hurricane from RAF Pembrey got into trouble while on a routine patrol of the Pembrokeshire coast. The Polish pilot, one of many Poles who joined the RAF after escaping their homeland following the 1939 German invasion, was forced to attempt a landing at RAF Carew Cheriton but he undershot the runway, the plane overturned and he was killed instantly.

■On November 13th an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber, flying from RAF Leeming in Yorkshire on a operation to seek out U-boats at the German-occupied port of Lorient in Brittany, crash-landed virtually on the doorstep of the ancient Pen Bryn Oer farmhouse on Rhymney Hill above Tredegar in Gwent before plunging down the mountain slope into a pond. The injured crew of five were given shelter and food by Mr and Mrs Hawthorn who lived at the farm, before being taken to Rhymney Hospital where one man died of his injuries. Today there is a windfarm where the farmhouse once stood.

■In December a Vickers Wellington, attempting to return to base at RAF Marham in Norfolk after a bombing raid on Bordeaux, got hopelessly lost in bad weather. The six-man crew believed the plane was over East Anglia and began a slow descent – but they were over 150 miles west above the mountains of northern Gwent! The Wellington flew straight into the rocky face of Cefn-yr-Ystrad, one of the southernmost peaks in Bannau Brycheiniog. Nobody survived; the resulting fire was so intense the shattered metal re-fused into grotesque shapes that remain sprinkled across the mountain to this day.

1941
■ Mynydd Esclus in Denbighshire claimed another victim in February 1941 when a newly manufactured Fairey Fulmar being flown from Fairey’s factory in Lancashire to join an aircraft carrier in Hampshire crashed into the high plateau, killing the solo pilot.

■Later in the month a Whitley bomber stationed at RAF Penrhos suffered engine failure and ditched into Cardigan Bay near Abersoch. Three trainee gunners couldn’t get out of the sinking plane and drowned.

■In a catastrophic accident at RAF Carew Cheriton a Lockheed Hudson bomber manned by a Dutch squadron lost control on take-off due to ice on the wings and crashed into one of the hangars. The pilot was thrown clear and survived, but the four other crew members all died.

■Into March, a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden struck trees at Cefn Maen Farm (now holiday cottages), Saron near Denbigh, and burst into flames. The solo pilot didn’t stand a chance.

■All three crew on board died when a Fairey Battle from RAF Stormy Down dived into the sea off Porthcawl while on a training exercise. The bodies were never found.

■On the night of March 4th, a German Air Force Heinkel on a Cardiff bombing mission from Nantes in France was shot down into the sea by anti-aircraft guns on Nell’s Point, Barry Island. The four-man crew all died.

■A Wellington bomber from RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire, returning from a raid on German-occupied Lorient, got lost in the mountains of Eryri and slammed into the rugged slopes of Moel Farlwyd. The rear turret broke free on impact, saving the life of the rear gunner, but the other five on board died instantly.

■Returning to RAF Carew Cheriton, a Blenheim stalled in bad weather and crashed at Hays Brook Farm, a mile south of the airbase, killing the lone pilot. Surprisingly, the Farm still exists today.

■Still in March, a Blenheim from RAF Harwell came down in a sea fog near Cricieth Castle in Gwynedd, killing all the crew of five.

■The three-man German crew of a Heinkel bomber from Juvincourt in France all died when it was shot down by a Hurricane into the sea five miles west of Penmaen Dewi (St David’s Head) in Pembrokeshire.

■A week later on the night of April 9th an identical incident happened at Penmaen Dewi when another Heinkel, this time from the GAF Brest base in France, was shot down by another Hurricane and four died.

■Yet another Heinkel (from Nantes) bit the dust this month when it crashed into Llwytmor, a mountain in the Carneddau Range, killing one.

■A Fairey Battle from RAF Stormy Down nose-dived into the ground at Rockfields Farm, Cefn Cribwr, killing all three on board. Today the Farm is no more, the old farmhouse is called Mount Pleasant and the land is sliced through by the M4.

■A Spitfire from RAF Hawarden belly-flopped into a field near Rhyl, killing the pilot.

■Late in April, a Hurricane from RAF Pembrey suffered engine failure and ditched into Carmarthen Bay. The pilot died in the impact.

■Into May, two more airmen died when another RAF Stormy Down Fairey crashed in windy conditions into a field near Pwll Cynffig, Glamorgan’s biggest natural lake. The plane burst into flames.

■A Blackburn Botha bomber from RAF Squire’s Gate near Blackpool ditched into the sea off Ynys Seiriol (Puffin Island). Two of the three-man crew survived but one died.

■On May 8th a Heinkel on a bombing mission from Villacoublay in France was shot down by a Defiant interceptor aircraft over Bagillt in Flintshire. Two of the crew died and Bagillt police station, later demolished, was badly damaged.

■On the same day a Defiant (possibly the same one) shot down another Heinkel, this one based in Chartres. It crashed into the grounds of Llwyn Knottia Farm on the outskirts of Wrecsam and four died. Today the imposing old farmhouse has been converted into flats and holiday lets.

■Also on May 8th a Hurricane from RAF Pembrey was undertaking training on the firing ranges at Cefn Sidan beach but didn’t pull out of a dive and slammed into the sea shallows, killing the pilot instantly.

■The lone pilot died when, befuddled by thick cloud, he crashed his RAF Hawarden-based Spitfire in the remote slate landscape of Cwmorthin, deep in the mountains of Eryri.

■On May 11th a Hurricane from RAF St Athan crashed into the sea two miles south of Barry, killing the pilot.

■A Westland Lysander liaison aircraft took off from RAF Pembrey in near zero visibility and within a minute the aircraft hit a tall tree, crashed, broke up and caught fire. The pilot died and the tail gunner suffered life-changing injuries.

■A Curtiss Tomahawk fighter plane from RAF Odiham in Hampshire stalled when trying to make a forced landing in bad weather and crashed in fields near Llanrhidian on Gŵyr (Gower), killing the sole occupant.

■The menacing mountains of Eryri claimed another victim when a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden flew into high ground in cloud at Cwm-fynhadog near Dolwyddelan. If the pilot survived the impact he didn’t survive the resulting fire.

■A Bristol Beaufighter from RAF St Athan, returning to base after a test flight, broke up when the pilot foolishly decided to give his two engineer passengers a bit of fun with some aerobatics. It was a bad mistake: the main spar snapped and a wing sheared off during a roll. Reginald Sheppard, the pilot, managed to bail out but the others didn’t and they died as the aircraft ploughed into the ground at Redholme Farm near Llanbydderi in the Vale of Glamorgan. The pilot was exonerated at a court martial, blame being attributed to unspecified manufacturing errors, only to die in another crash the following year.

■A Junkers 88 combat aircraft flying from Orleans in France was shot down by a Beaufighter over Flintshire. Attempting a forced landing at Buckley (Bwcle), two of the German crew died.

■Two days later at the start of June, it was a case of deja vu when another Junkers 88 (from Caen) was shot down by another Beaufighter. This time the entire four-man crew died when it cartwheeled into the sea off Llandudno.

■Flying from RAF Penrhos, a Hawker Henley on a training exercise attempted a forced landing after engine failure but crashed into a rocky ridge at the ancient Tal y Garreg hillfort overlooking the Dysynni estuary. Both occupants died.

■After the engine of a Westland Whirlwind from RAF Filton in Gloucestershire cut out in the countryside north of Usk (Brynbuga) the lone pilot couldn’t control the plane and died when it collided with trees at Llandenni.

■A Wellington bomber from RAF Harwell crashed into rising ground at Blaen Glasffrwd, a historic farm near Strata Florida Abbey in the Cambrian Mountains, killing three of the seven-man crew and injuring the other four. The Farm survives, its barns still in use and the farmhouse acting as a resting place for hill-farmers.

■The pilot died during take off at RAF Hawarden when he crashed his Spitfire into a hangar.

■The Sunderland ‘flying boat’, manufactured by Short Brothers of Belfast, was heavily involved in the Battle of the Atlantic attempting to counteract German U-boats. On June 24th, a Sunderland on a reconnaissance patrol from RAF Mount Batten in Plymouth Sound, attempted a night landing at RAF Pembroke Dock via a flare path on the water but overshot and crashed on rocks off Popton Point, killing two of the 12-man crew.

■In early July two Spitfires from RAF Hawarden were descending through cloud together when they flew into a hill near Rhiwabon. Both planes were destroyed in the impact and their pilots died.

■Horror came to Mount Pleasant near Treharris in Glamorgan on July 7th after two Spitfires from RAF Heston in Middlesex collided during formation flying practice. One crashed into a field near Quakers Yard, bursting into flames and killing the pilot, while the other corkscrewed out of control into No. 1 South View a mile north. Alice Cox and her two daughters Phyllis and Doreen, as well as the pilot, were all killed. Today, the entire row of terraced houses on South View has gone.

■Two days later a pair of Spitfires from RAF Llandow (opened 1940), collided with each other. The pilot successfully bailed out of one, but the other crashed into a field near Ty Draw Farm at Tregolwyn (Colwinston) in the Vale of Glamorgan and the pilot perished.

■The skill and experience needed to manoeuvre a Spitfire, the RAF’s paramount fighter plane, was shown once again when another from RAF Llandow came unstuck. On dogfight practice, it stalled and careered into a field adjoining Llan Lane (today’s Llan Road) at Marcross in the Vale. Neither pilot nor plane survived.

■Tiger Moths from the 1930s were used during WW2 as training aircraft. Two men aboard one of the old-fashioned biplanes, on a short flight between RAF Carew Cheriton and RAF Manorbier (opened 1933), were killed when the pilot misjudged the Manorbier approach and turned too sharply to avoid hitting a water tower. The Tiger Moth nose-dived into the ground and was destroyed by fire on impact. Today Manorbier (Maenorbyr), like most of southern Pembrokeshire, is still in the hands of the British military. Called Air Defence Range Manorbier, it is the sole UK range used for High Velocity Missile firing. The prolific writer, father of the travelogue and pioneering philosopher and academic Gerald of Wales (c1146-c1223) was born in Manorbier Castle. He described Manorbier as “the most pleasant place in Wales by far” – unless he had developed a fondness for weapons of mass destruction, caravan parks, camping sites and English holiday homes he sure wouldn’t say that today.

■Self-inflicted accidents were now almost claiming as many Spitfires as the Luftwaffe. Two more from RAF Hawarden bit the dust on July 20th after contriving to collide in mid-air. Both pilots died after the planes fell to earth and exploded in flames right on the Wales/England border in farmland near Rossett in Denbighshire.

■A Defiant ‘turret-fighter’ was on a routine training flight from RAF Valley on Ynys Môn (opened in 1941) when it inexplicably crashed near Llannerch-y-medd, killing the pilot.

■In late July the pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden met a watery grave when his plane suddenly dropped out of a formation with other Spitfires and slammed into the sea near Caernarfon.

■In early August an Airspeed Oxford training aircraft from RAF Shawbury crashed at the beautiful Sychnant Pass in Eryri after the pilot lost his bearings in fog and low cloud. The pilot was killed instantly when the aircraft incinerated on impact.

■Descending out of cloud above Mynydd Maendy on the west flank of Rhondda Fawr, a Spitfire from RAF Llandow lost a wing and piled into Tarren Felen Uchaf, an ancient cairn above Ton Pentre. The pilot did not survive the impact. Today the cairn and a nearby Iron Age hillfort are features along the network of trails called ‘The Great Glamorgan Way’, popular with walkers and cyclists.

■On August 7th a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden crashed near the beach at Talacre in Flintshire, the northernmost settlement in mainland Wales, killing the pilot.

■On the 11th another Spitfire, this one from RAF Speke in Lancashire, was destroyed when the windshield iced up and the aircraft fell headlong into the sea north of Prestatyn. The pilot drowned.

■The following day a Spitfire from RAF Llandow hit Mynydd Pen-y-cae above Cwmgwrach in the Neath valley. The pilot’s death was attributed to poor visibility. Amid the remote, dense forestry, fragments of metal can still be seen around the impact site, where a needless and insolent shrine out of stones has been constructed.

■A Hurricane from RAF Valley on a practice flight was written off and its pilot killed when it went into a spin after stalling and crashed near the village of Llanddeusant on Ynys Môn.

■On August 17th the people of Pennal, the village where Owain Glyndwr (1354-1415) wrote the historic ‘Pennal Letter’ to the King of France in 1406, were given a terrible shock when a Wellington on a training exercise from RAF Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire slammed into the great mass of Ffridd Rhosfarch, an imposing mountain that looms over Pennal. The shuddering impact and booming explosion made it clear nobody would survive the crash. The trainees on board had become disorientated by low cloud and mistook the Dyfi estuary for the sea. All six died. Farmers found the bodies in the big plane’s smouldering wreckage the following day. A mountain rescue team from RAF Llandwrog, only opened a month previously, brought the corpses down to lie in the village hall until recovery crews arrived. The names of the dead are inscribed on a brass plaque in Pennal cemetery and the substantial scattered remains of the aircraft on Ffridd Rhosfarch have ludicrously been designated as a ‘war memorial’.

■A Lockheed Hudson reconnaissance aircraft from RAF St Eval in Cornwall lost its way and struck rocky Mynydd y Gaer near Gilfach Goch, the mining village in the Ogwr Fach where author Richard Llewellyn (1906-1983) had located his 1939 novel How Green Was My Valley. The plane disintegrated as it tumbled down the mountain into a ravine and all four on board died – three immediately, one later in hospital.

■The crew of five all perished when an Avro Anson on a training exercise from RAF Penrhos slammed into the sea off Nefyn on Llŷn.

■On August 22nd two Spitfires from RAF Hawarden collided at speed and crashed to the ground, killing both pilots. Such was their velocity, one came down at Borras, near Wrecsam, and the other more than 10 miles away at Bagillt on the Dyfrdwy estuary.

■Another Spitfire was destroyed when it dropped into the powerful tidal Severn off Rhoose Point, not far from its base at RAF Llandow. The pilot was never found.

■Calamity befell Ynys Môn on August 28th. First a Blackburn Botha bomber, returning to its base at RAF West Freugh in Wigtownshire after a routine training flight to Wales, came down in rough seas off Rhosneigr following an aborted take off from RAF Valley. The plane remained afloat, quite close to the shore; however two of the three-man crew were swept out to sea to their deaths, leaving one clinging to the aircraft. Then two fearless 17-year-old boys took to a little boat in an attempt to save him, but the boat overturned and they had to swim to the plane to join the airman on the chassis. Somehow they retrieved the boat and the three rode the upturned hull, paddling through the waves back towards shore. With the help of soldiers who had gathered on the beach, the boys were dragged to safety but the exhausted airman was swept away again. Six of the soldiers, a merchant seaman home on leave and a local policeman went to his rescue in a larger boat, but this boat was also overturned and the eight men were flung into the heavy seas. Lifejackets were dropped from RAF Valley planes but these too were swept out to sea. Next, soldiers and airmen with ropes waded out as far as they could in an attempt to form a ‘human chain’ to reach the drowning men but the force of the waves sucked them underwater or drove them back. In scenes of chaos and confusion, all rescue attempts were finally abandoned as the tide raced in and smashed against the shore and it became apparent no survivors remained. When the death toll was reckoned it amounted to three airmen and 11 of the rescuers, adding up to 14 and making it Wales’ most deadly air disaster up to this point in time.

■At the end of August a Fairey Battle climbing skywards from RAF Stormy Down suddenly went into a steep dive off Nash Point on the Glamorgan coast, white smoke pouring out of the engine. The plane slammed into the sea and all three on board were killed.

■On September 7th an Anson on a training flight from RAF Abingdon in Berkshire entered thick cloud as it approached the Berwyn Range and crashed head-on into the lower flanks of Moel Sych, one of the highest peaks in the Berwyns. The pilot died instantly but the four passengers survived. One was trapped in the twisted wreckage but the other three, injured badly, managed to crawl out onto the misty hillside. Wireless operator Frank Mitchell, the least hurt, descended the treacherous terrain in failing light to get help, knowing all would die when night fell. Somehow he made it to a shepherd’s hut two miles away near Blaen-y-cwm and all four men were saved. For Mitchell it was a temporary reprieve: he died a year later in a training accident in England. Shards of the Avro Anson can still be found amid the heather on Moel Sych.

■One of the multi-purpose Bristol Beaufighters, ferrying parts from RAF Weston-super-Mare in Somerset to RAF Sealand, drifted well off course into Eryri and flew into rocky Moel Siabod. The solo pilot was killed.

■A Spitfire setting off on a mission from RAF Llandow on September 11th didn’t get very far. The plane had barely travelled three miles eastward when it suffered engine failure and gyrated into the ground at Tydraw Farm (still operating) near Picketston in the Vale of Glamorgan, killing the pilot.

■Next, a Blenheim from RAF Carew Cheriton on night patrol ran out of fuel above Ynys Môn and had to be abandoned. It crashed into fields near Bodorgan, but one of the three-man crew wasn’t able to jump out in time.

■Taking off from RAF Llandow on September 25th, a Spitfire immediately got into trouble and nose-dived into the sea near Llanilltud Fawr. The body of the pilot was washed ashore along with the wreckage.

■RAF Fairwood Common on Gŵyr suffered its first fatality since opening in June. Three Hurricanes were returning to base after dog-fight practice over the sea off Cynffig when one of the planes became separated in thick cloud and began flying in the wrong direction: east instead of west. Quite lost, the experienced pilot descended through the cloud and found himself over Treherbert in the steep-sided Rhondda Fawr valley. The pilot desperately tried to regain elevation, but he pulled the stick back too far and the Hurricane stalled, struck the hillside by the Rhigos road and exploded. Boys coming home from school who had heard the explosion were the first on the scene. They found the pilot’s dead body on the road amid the burning debris.

■On the same day, September 26th, a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden on a local cloud flying exercise wandered 50 miles off course into the unforgiving highlands of Eryri. The aircraft was totally wrecked and the pilot killed when it slammed into Yr Aran, a daunting mountain close to Yr Wyddfa.

■Of the UK’s three armed forces – army, navy and airforce – the RAF suffered the most casualties pro-rata during WW2, with death rates for those on fighter and bomber planes as high as 45%. This meant barely-trained young men and even teenagers were required to operate these complex machines, so it was little wonder that many lacked the refined skills needed to fly a plane like the Spitfire (just try to imagine a typical young male of today with the attention span of a gnat doing anything remotely similar). They had to learn on the job, and more examples of this inbuilt inexperience came thick and fast as the War went on and on. Into October, a Spitfire from RAF Llandow stalled in mid-air, spiralled out of control and crashed just off the main A48 road near St Nicholas. The impact and fire killed the pilot instantly.

■The following day, another Spitfire from RAF Llandow was lost. Two of the aircraft were practicing manoeuvres over the the coast near Southerndown when their wing-tips touched. One managed to safely return to base, the other barrelled into the sea at pace and the pilot died.

■RAF Llandwrog in Gwynedd, only opened in July 1941, experienced a major calamity in October when two Whitley bombers, returning from a gunnery exercise over Caernarfon Bay, collided approaching the airfield: the prop of one cut through the tailplane of the other when both pilots attempted drastic avoidance action in vain after realising the planes were far too close. One plane flipped over, the other belly-flopped helplessly and both burst into flames as they smashed into the runway. Nobody survived. In total there were 17 fatalities, nine on one Whitley, eight on the other – a death toll that established a new Welsh record. The Whitley bomber, developed in the 1930s by Armstrong Whitworth in Coventry, was soon superseded by larger ‘heavy’ bombers like the Avro Lancaster the following year.

■German bombers had completely taken over from fighter planes as the main aerial threat to the UK by this time. The bombing ‘Blitz’ in Wales was particularly destructive at Swansea (400 civilians dead and the town centre destroyed beyond recognition) and Pembroke Dock, which suffered the highest death toll in Wales per head of population. It was therefore quite a coup when a pair of Heinkels from GAF Bordeaux were shot down by a Beaufighter from RAF Valley on the night of October 12th. They both careered into the sea off Holyhead and eight Germans (four on each plane) perished.

■Two of the four crew were killed when a Handley Page Hampden from RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire crashed south of Aberaeron after the starboard engine’s propeller and reduction gear sheared off. By 1943 Hampden bombers were deemed obsolete by Bomber Command.

■Four more German airmen died on the night of October 22nd/23rd when another sharpshooting Beaufighter from RAF Valley dispatched another Bordeaux-based Heinkel into the sea near Nefyn on the Llŷn coast.

■Engine failure caused the pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Atcham in Shropshire into a forced landing, but he lost control and the plane turned over and smashed into fields near the village of Treuddyn near Mold. Death came quickly.

■At night a Blenheim bomber from RAF Carew Cheriton was returning to base when it flew into high ground on the Ridgeway that runs across south Pembrokeshire. It hit the ground near Hays Farm, which still exists, and the two airmen on board were killed.

■During a night patrol on October 25th a Defiant fighter plane from RAF Fairwood Common inadvertently struck the cable of a barrage balloon. As the aircraft plummeted towards Neath, the two airmen had seconds to jump out and activate their parachutes. One of them succeeded but the other’s chute didn’t open in time. The Defiant crashed into the ground, just avoiding houses at Park Crescent, Sgiwen. The deceased’s body was found nearby.

■Another accident occurred on October 29th when two Spitfires from RAF Llandow collided and crash-dived into deep sea three miles off Nash Point in Glamorgan. No traces of the planes or their young pilots were ever found.

■November began with yet another bullseye for a Beaufighter night patrol from RAF Valley, downing a Heinkel and its four-man crew into the Cors Bodwrog marshes near Llynfaes on Ynys Môn.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Hawarden collided near Bodelwyddan and both the pilots died as the planes fell to ground and burst into flames at Kinmel Park.

■On a navigation mission from RAF Llandow, a Spitfire disappeared off the radar and didn’t return. After three days the plane and pilot were listed as missing. It wasn’t until July 20th in 1942, almost nine months later, that the destroyed plane and the remains of the pilot were found by a shepherd, bringing down his sheep from the high mountains of Bannau Brycheiniog for their summer shearing. He had spotted glimpses of the wreckage on the sheer north face of Pen y Fan. It took RAF rescue teams some time to recover the remains as they were wedged into a treacherous inaccessible gulley. When the pilot’s identity tag was found, only then did the authorities realise how long the plane had been missing – which to this day is the RAF record for the longest ever missing flight over land. Plenty of the Spitfire’s wreckage is still slowly eroding on the Pen y Fan cliffs.

■Another RAF Llandow Spitfire came to a sticky end on a training flight when it stalled as it climbed over Caerffili Mountain and crashed into the rocky terrain at Cefncarnau near Castell Morgraig. It burst into flames on impact and the pilot was killed.

■On November 16th a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden disintegrated when it flew into Mynydd Eglwyseg in the beautiful limestone uplands north of Llangollen. That old foe, low cloud, was the pilot’s undoing.

■The pilot of a Spitfire on a navigation exercise from RAF Llandow was killed and his plane destroyed when it flew into Mynydd y Glyn above Trebanog in Rhondda Fawr in poor weather. The mountain is a classic example of the exploitation and desecration of Wales, mutilated by slag-heaps, quarries, tips, timber plantations, barbed wire barriers and now the prospect of yet another massive windfarm to generate free electricity for the UK not, of course, for Wales.

■On the same day one more RAF Llandow Spitfire was obliterated when it hit the ground near Sutton Fach Farm (still hanging on) on the outskirts of Barry. Unusually, the routine inquiry pinned the blame squarely on the dead pilot who had totally disregarded low-flying orders.

■Unable to negotiate bad weather, the pilot delivering a Spitfire to RAF Valley from RAF Hawarden lost his life when it crashed just after crossing the Menai.

■November ended with the demise of another Spitfire and its pilot. The first casualty of newly-opened RAF Llanbedr in Gwynedd dived out of cloud cover and promptly smacked into the sea off Abermaw (Barmouth).

■Unsurprisingly, the first loss in December was a Spitfire, the RAF’s most numerous and most potent aircraft, being churned out at factories across the UK. Based at RAF Llandow, its pilot miscalculated aerobatics training and it came down almost within the Aberthaw cement works. The works remain a polluting blot on the landscape on the Glamorgan coast to this day.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Hawarden touched during training. One managed to belly-flop to a safe landing but the other pirouetted into the secluded, sweeping common lands of Mynydd Helygain (Halkyn) in Flintshire, killing the pilot.

■By now RAF Pembroke Dock had become the largest Flying Boat Station in the world. Shortly before December 7th, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the USA entered the War, Pembroke Dock had been supplied with the first batch of American PBY Catalina flying boats/amphibious aircraft. Then, the week after Pearl Harbor, disaster struck. A Catalina, taking off for a patrol of the Bay of Biscay, hit a partially submerged obstacle, crashed into the Haven off Popton Point and quickly sank. All but two of the nine-man crew drowned.

■Later in December there was another Catalina catastrophe at RAF Pembroke Dock. This time six of the 10 crew died as the aircraft sank when landing on choppy seas.

■Practising the very difficult skill of ‘cloud flying’ in a Spitfire from RAF Llandow, the pilot became completely confused, not knowing which direction was up and which direction was down. The plane emerged from the clouds upside down and out of control and smashed into the gardens of adjacent houses (still standing today) in Byass Street, Margam. The pilot of course died, but luckily nobody on the ground was killed.

1942
■The first fatality of the year involved, inevitably, a Spitfire. On a navigational exercise from RAF Llandow, the pilot encountered thick cloud, became lost and was killed when he crashed into the side of Mynydd y Gelli south of Ton Pentre in Rhondda Fawr.

■Something went wrong with a Beaufighter when approaching its RAF Valley base. The plane stalled and spun into the gritty coast off Rhosneigr, killing the two-man crew.

■On January 7th an Anson returning to RAF Penrhos from RAF Valley failed to attain the elevation needed to get above the soaring mountains of Eryri and flew slap bang into Mynydd Tal-y-Mignedd. The five on board all died.

■A 12-aircraft squadron of Spitfires flying in formation near their base at RAF Valley was rudely interrupted when a Lysander ‘co-operation & liaison’ aircraft (a notoriously tricky plane to fly) from RAF Ringway in Cheshire flew into the squadron and hit one of the Spitfires. The Lysander came down at Rhosneigr golf links adjacent to the airfield and its pilot died. The Spitfire’s pilot managed to make a forced landing at Valley and survived. He eventually recovered from serious injuries but never flew fighter planes again.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Hawarden collided over Sealand during a training flight. The planes came down in farmland very near the Wales/England border. One pilot died on impact while the other, despite managing to jump out, also died – his parachute didn’t open in time.

■After a training exercise on February 8th, a Defiant stalled and crashed when approaching its RAF Stormy Down base. One of the crew of two was killed.

■On the same day a Spitfire from RAF Aston Down in Gloucestershire crashed into the Severn near Cas-gwent (Chepstow). The impact killed the pilot, who had been practising low flying.

■The American-built Lockheed Hudson was used for coastal reconnaissance, transport and training in WW2. On February 10th a Hudson from RAF Honeybourne in Worcestershire, on a circular navigation test across Wales, over the Irish Sea then back to England, encountered a thunderstorm east of Aberystwyth. In hail and zero visibility it was struck by lightning and flew into a steep hill near Cwmbrwyno. All four crew members were killed.

■A Lysander from RAF Stormy Down crashed into trees in wooded countryside near Aberbaiden in the Vale of Glamorgan. The plane was totally wrecked and both the crew died. Since then the environment in the locality has been destroyed by massive quarrying operations that have eradicated entire hills.

■One of the planes based at the revived acronym RNAS (now meaning Royal Navy Air Station) Worthy Down in Hampshire was the Proctor, a radio trainer and communications aircraft manufactured by the Percival company at Luton. On February 14th, training over Wales, a Proctor crashed on common land at Heol Las, killing the pilot and severely injuring the passenger. Notoriously heavy and un-aerodynamic, Proctors were soon phased out. As for the Heol Las common, it has been wiped out by the housing estates of North Cornelly and the M4 motorway.

■Returning to RAF Carew Cheriton from a convoy patrol, a Blenheim became lost in dark clouds and torrential rain over the Pembrokeshire coast. Spotting RAF Pembrey on the Carmarthenshire coast, the crew decided to land there instead. But, unfamiliar with the airfield, the plane overshot the runway and crashed, killing one of the three men on board.

■By this juncture in the War the RAF didn’t have a single pilot over the age of 30, so many having been killed or injured. Perhaps this might explain the errors made by the two young airmen learning the ropes on a short test flight from RAF Sealand. Both were killed and the Defiant they were flying was written off when the plane stalled and crashed approaching the Sealand runway.

■On March 8th a Spitfire from RAF Llandow on a navigation exercise dived out of cloud in an erratic spin near Abergavenny (Y Fenni). The pilot tried but failed to pull out of the dive and he was killed outright when the plane scythed into trees and slammed into the ground near Foxes Bark Farm (now holiday cottages) on the western flank of Ysgyrd Fawr (Skirrid Mountain).

■There was a fatal mishap on March 10th when a Spitfire returning to RAF Llanbedr crashed into the airfield’s water tower, killing the pilot, before continuing to skid down the runway and only coming to a halt when it hit the Officers Mess.

■The Taylorcraft was a recreational light aeroplane made in Leicestershire that was requisitioned into military service in 1941. It wasn’t of much use to the RAF though, as shown by a crash in the Powys mountains on March 14th when a Taylorcraft stationed at RAF Old Sarum in Wiltshire broke up in mid-air and came down into Garth Bank by the Afon Dulas, killing the pilot. After the War Taylorcraft was taken over by Auster Aircraft. Auster became synonymous with the private light aeroplane for civilian use before being swallowed up by Beagle Aviation in 1960s, which in turn was wound up in 1969.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Llandow collided over Y Bont-faen (Cowbridge): one belly-flopped safely into a field but the other crash landed nearby and its pilot died.

■In late March a squadron of Spitfires left RAF Fairwood Common to patrol a convoy. One pilot was soon reporting engine trouble. He battled bravely to keep the plane aloft but had to ditch in the sea near the Helwick Lightship west of Pen Pyrod (Worms Head). Unfortunately, the plane turned up on its nose and sank and the pilot drowned. Today the Lightship is a floating exhibit in Swansea Marina.

■Into April, the pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Hawarden was killed when, in thick cloud, the plane flew into the ground in the remote mountain valley of Cwm Barlwyd not far from Blaenau Ffestiniog in the heart of Eryri. The corpse and wreckage were finally found over three weeks later by a shepherd.

■On a long journey right across the British Isles, a Wellington bomber from RAF East Wretham in Norfolk joined the growing catalogue of planes swallowed up by the formidable barrier of Eryri. In bad weather it crashed near the Pistyll Gwyn at Brynuchaf in the Cambrian Mountains and all six on board were killed. Abundant pieces of scattered debris can still be found today.

■The unstable and underpowered Blackburn Botha torpedo plane, made by the Blackburn Aircraft company at its factories in Yorkshire and Scotland, had such a bad reputation it was being used less and less by the RAF (it would be completely retired by 1944). A typical example of its unreliability came in April when a Botha from RAF St Athan, being flown along the Severn Estuary to test its engine, suddenly lost all power in one engine and dropped into the water off Tresilian Bay. The pilot died instantly but the three surviving crew managed to get into the emergency dingy. With the tide ebbing, the dingy was being swept out to sea when the Mumbles Lifeboat rescued the men in the middle of Swansea Bay. Five years later, the same Mumbles Lifeboat would be involved in an infamous maritime disaster when trying to save the men aboard the US ship Samtampa which had been driven onto rocks at Sker Point in hurricane force winds and huge seas. All 39 of the ship’s crew and the eight crewmen of the Mumbles Lifeboat perished.

■A Wellington from RAF Pershore in Worcestershire was caught in a violent storm over mid-Wales and all contact was lost with the plane. A farmer from Troedyrhiw Farm (still there) below the steep northerly ridge of Mynydd Epynt (these days a wargames playground for the British Army) found the Wellington and the corpses of its six-man crew after noticing a large fire on the mountainside. The plane had crashed headlong into the high ground and exploded. It took recovery teams weeks to remove the Wellington’s wreckage and the grisly human remains.

■Fatalities could happen in any circumstances. On April 11th the pilot died when his Spitfire landed at RAF Hawarden and simply overturned on the runway.

■A Lysander from RAF Stormy Down hit 30,000 Volt overhead wires in thickly wooded Cwm Wenderi east of Port Talbot and crashed into the forest below. Both men on board died.

■A simple navigational blunder caused an Anson from RAF Moreton-in-Marsh to hit the east elevation of Foel-fras, one of the highest mountains in the complex Carneddau Range. Sheer luck for three of the four-man crew meant they survived, but there was no such luck for the fourth man.

■The pilot was killed and his Spitfire destroyed when it spun into the ground south of Llanilltud Fawr, a few miles from its RAF Llandow base. Housing now covers the crash site.

■On April 25th a GAF Junkers bomber set off at night from an airfield in occupied Brussels with the intention of bombing the city of Bath. It all went wrong for the Luftwaffe. First the plane was hit by heavy flak from gun batteries on Ynys Echni (Flatholm) that wounded two of the four-man crew. Then, disorientated and lost in Dyffryn Gwy (the Wye valley), the Junkers was attacked by a Beaufighter dispatched from RAF High Ercall in Shropshire. A thrilling dog-fight ensued in the vicinity of Y Gelli (Hay-on-Wye) with the specialist night-fighter gaining ascendancy as it hunted the Junkers down and repeatedly peppered it with crippling hits. Two of the crew bailed out as it burst into flames and the other two died as the ablaze plane crashed into Bryn Gwaunceste in scenic southern Radnorshire and exploded. The explosion was heard 20 miles away in Brecon. The two German survivors became POWs and both saw out the War.

■May began farcically when two Spitfires collided as they took off in quick succession from RAF Fairwood Common. The tail of one was broken off and its propeller lost but the pilot worked wonders by gliding the plane down to a forced landing in a field at Furzeland Farm (now holiday lets) on Gŵyr. He was seriously injured, but lived to tell the tale. But the pilot of the second Spitfire bailed out far too low for the parachute to open as the aircraft plunged to earth further south at Kilvrough Farm (you guessed right, it’s holiday and airb’n’b lets) and he was killed.

■In these early phases of WW2 the Hawker Henley was used as a two-seater ‘target tug’ (i.e. it towed unmanned targets for the purposes of target practice), but it wasn’t a success and was soon withdrawn. An example of its fallibility came on May 5th at RAF Towyn (opened 1940), situated north of Tywyn on the Gwynedd coast. The aircraft unexpectedly stalled as it lifted off, a wing made contact with the sea, and it came down on the beach at nearby Tonfanau – a mix of sand, pebbles and rocks. One of the two-man crew died, the other survived.

■All five on board were killed when a Whitley bomber from RAF Abingdon, on a night navigation exercise over Wales, crashed into a gently rising flat plateau at Waun Garno in the remote countryside south of Carno in Montgomeryshire. The subsequent investigation could find no reason for the crash other than pilot error. The pilot was just 19 years old and, with today’s training by computer simulation decades away, the only way to properly learn how to fly was by actually doing it: no wonder, then, that error rates were high.

■In a night-time confrontation, a Beaufighter from RAF Valley shot down a Junkers, on a bombing mission from GAF Lannion in Brittany. It disappeared into Cardigan Bay. It is thought there were two fatalities, but German records are unsure.

■An Avro Manchester bomber from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, returning from a night raid over Germany, crashed into the sea off the Pembrokeshire coast, killing all four occupants. The plane and the dead were never found as the exact location of the crash could not be established.

■On May 21st, during a training exercise from RAF Llandow, a Spitfire unaccountably crashed into the sea off St Donats on the Glamorgan coast, destroying the plane and killing the pilot.

■With their super-sensitive controls, blistering speed, exceptional aerial agility, high engine torque, need for constant in-flight micro-adjustments and greatly reduced forward visibility, Spitfires were exceptionally difficult to fly. Another example of this came on May 23rd when a Spitfire from RAF Llandow practising formation flying in a group of three became separated from the others in thick cloud and went missing. It was nine days before the wreckage was spotted by a worker carrying out routine reservoir inspections in the upper Taff valley: half-buried shattered pieces in flat bog-lands on the summit ridge of Gwaun Nant Ddu. It was an extremely difficult task to remove the charred body of the pilot and what wreckage could be retrieved at the virtually inaccessible location. The accident was blamed on bad weather and a navigation error. Today the crash crater has become a small bog with the obligatory pile of stones memorial and mouldering bits of wreckage nearby.

■The next day, a Blenheim from RAF Pembrey caught fire on take-off and, out of control, dived into fields off Penybedd Road just beyond the airfield’s eastern perimeter. All four on the plane died.

■RAF Aberporth on the Ceredigion coast was established in 1940 and became a station for all the UK’s armed services working on weaponry. After all, it is so convenient for firing missiles directly into Cardigan Bay, and who cares anyway? The first serious accident came when a Henley, returning to base, stalled at too low a height to make amends and cork-screwed into the ground just beyond the airfield, killing both on board.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Llandow that had been practising formation flying touched when coming in to land. Both struck the ground alongside the runway and the pilots were instantly killed.

■While carrying out a fuel consumption test, a Wellington from RAF Harwell strayed off course in poor visibility over Wales and flew straight into the implacable rock wall of Cadair Idris at Mynydd Moel overlooking Dolgellau. None of the six-man crew survived.

■A Spitfire from RAF Hawarden dived into the ground near RAF Sealand’s rifle range, suggesting the pilot was in trouble and trying to land safely, and that was that for both plane and pilot.

■A Botha based at RAF Hawarden was taking off from RAF Bodorgan (opened 1940) on the west coast of Ynys Môn when the engine failed. The plane made it to Ynys Llanddwyn a couple of miles away before crashing. One of the two men on board died. There are worse places to end your days than this evocative tidal island, legendary home of Dwynwen, patron saint of Welsh lovers.

■In June there was something of a respite from the incessant fatalities, the first death of the month not happening until the 14th, when the pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Rednal in Shropshire misjudged a low-flying manoeuvre and hit the ground hard near the village of Llys Bedydd (Bettisfield), Denbighshire. The plane caught fire and the pilot died.

■The two men aboard a Beaufighter from RAF Fairwood Common were practicing interception tactics in perfect weather over Gŵyr when the aircraft went into an unintended high-speed spin that ripped the wings off the fuselage, causing it to fall to ground in fields north of the village of Lunnon. The airmen were still alive, desperately trying to get out of the smouldering wreckage as a farmer from nearby Furzehill Farm rushed to their aid, but the plane suddenly flared up into an inferno and he was forced back. They burned to death.

■A pair of Spitfires from RAF Llandow on a formation training exercise came into contact in mid-air. One dropped out of the sky immediately, crashing near the airfield and killing the pilot. The other lingered longer before smashing into undulating countryside two miles north-east near Welsh St Donats (a name that reflects the 12th/13th century apartheid policies imposed in a number of areas of Wales: the original St Donats 10 miles away on the coast being reserved for the Anglo-Norman occupiers). The pilot attempted to abandon the plane but left the parachute jump too late and also died.

■A Wellington from RAF Wellesbourne Mountford in Warwickshire, returning to base in the middle of the night after bombing practice over the Severn estuary, got completely lost in thick clouds and ended up in the worst possible place, high over the Black Mountains in Bannau Brycheiniog. The inevitable happened: the aircraft struck the towering Waun Rydd at 150mph, hurtled over the edge down rocky Cerrig Edmwnt, somersaulted into narrow cwms and gulleys and broke into myriad pieces, killing all five crew members instantly. An improvised shrine was built at the crash site over the years and it is now another superfluous and vulgar ‘War Memorial’.

■A Spitfire from RAF Llandow inexplicably broke up amid the Cwm Ogwr hills in the Glamorgan coalfield and crashed close to Gadlys Farm (still a going concern) near Glynogwr, killing the pilot.

■The tendency of Spitfires to stall claimed another victim on July 10th when one did just that while descending towards RAF Hawarden. It spun out of control, dived into the ground a mile west of the airfield near the fields of Cherry Orchard Farm (now corporately owned) and burst into flames. The pilot was killed.

■There was heavy loss of life when a Lockheed Hudson flying from RAF Sydenham in Belfast (today’s George Best Belfast City Airport) to RAF Hendon in London, carrying a crew of three plus ten passengers, encountered bad weather over Denbighshire. In the storm, the aircraft suffered sudden structural failure, maybe caused by a lightning strike, and, out of control, crashed into pastures at Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd near Rhuthun, killing all 13 on board. The passengers were three civilians and seven military big-wigs.

■Disaster struck RAF Lichfield in Staffordshire on July 19th when two of its Wellingtons crashed in Wales on the same day. First a Wellington on cross-country training strayed from its intended course and ended up in the grip of Eryri. In cloud, the plane thumped into the crags of Ysgolion Duon on the north side of Carnedd Dafydd, the third highest peak in Wales, and all the crew of five were killed. Then another Wellington, also on cross-country training, lost power from one of its engines just off Penmaen Dewi. Losing height remorselessly, unable to successfully send out a distress call, and searching in vain for one of Pembrokeshire’s many airfields, the aircraft limped to the outskirts of Milford before stalling and crashing into buildings at the fishing port. It hit the ice house chimney and dock warehouses before coming to a halt buried into elevated ground on the north of the docks and promptly exploding. The crew of six perished. Milford was fortunate it wasn’t even worse – the impact site below Hamilton Terrace was just yards from the residential streets of the town centre.

■A Spitfire from RAF Aston Down in the Cotswolds was on a gunnery training flight over the sandbanks of the Severn when it stalled on a steep climb and plunged into the mud on the Welsh side of the sea-river near Cas-gwent, killing the pilot.

■There was another bullseye for a Beaufighter from RAF Valley on July 30th when a GAF Heinkel on a bombing mission from Orleans in France was shot down at Pwllheli and crashed onto the beach, killing both on board.

■A Spitfire from RAF Rednal on a training exercise broke up attempting a dive and crashed near Bryneglwys in the Morwynion valley in Denbighshire. The pilot jumped out, but too late for the parachute to open.

■Flying from RAF Speke to RAF Valley to attend a gunnery course, the pilot of a Hurricane lost his bearings in dense cloud and died when the plane crashed into rugged Allt-y-Ceffylau near Blaenau Ffestiniog.

■A Spitfire from RAF Hawarden stalled when taking off and spun out of control into the Afon Dyfrdwy at Saltney, killing the pilot.

■Having joined the War, the USA’s military were beginning to make their presence felt in Wales. But they had much to learn about Welsh geography. On August 11th a US Army Air Force (USAAF) Boeing Flying Fortress, a heavy-duty, four-engine bomber, somehow drifted into Wales while travelling from RAF Polebrook in Northamptonshire to RAF Burtonwood in Cheshire. The big beast flew into Cadair Bronwen in the jumble of mountains that form the Berwyns, burst into flames and was smashed to pieces. All 11 on board (eight airmen, three passengers) were killed.

■On August 12th a Wellington conducting the first night patrol to fly from RAF Dale (opened 1942) in Pembrokeshire was hit by strong winds as it lifted off and the fully-loaded plane immediately pitched into the sea. The crew of six all drowned. The wreckage of the Wellington was found by divers in 1991 and today some salvaged components can be seen in the museum at the old Navy Chapel in Pembroke Dock.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Hawarden collided soon after leaving the airfield and came down near the Welsh Land Settlement*, opposite Connah’s Quay on the sliver of Flintshire that lies on the east side of the Dyfrdwy. One of the pilots died, the other survived.
*NOTE: The Welsh Land Settlement was a worthy scheme initiated in 1939 to relocate destitute people from the high unemployment areas of the southern and northern coalfields to a new life in other parts of Wales. 500 families were settled in profit-sharing co-operative farms or small-holdings around the country, living close to the farmland in newly-built ‘Garden Village’ houses at peppercorn rents. The sites were at Llanfair Disgoed, Llangan, Portskewett, Rosemarket, Trebeferad (Boverton) and Sealand. The scheme ended in 1959 and as the lifetime assured tenancies gradually expired with the death of the original settlers, the desirable houses have become mainly privately owned. The Sealand Settlement is now called Garden City.

■An RAF Llandow Spitfire flew into the ground in awful weather near Resolfen in the Neath valley, killing the pilot.

■On August 16th there was another Spitfire collision involving two RAF Hawarden planes and this time both pilots died as the planes speared into fields at Higher Kinnerton a couple of miles south of the airfield.

■On August 19th a Wellington from RAF Chivenor in Devon on a test and demonstration flight was flying over Swansea Bay when it was shot down by ‘friendly fire’ from an American oil tanker, named USS Gulf of Mexico (don’t tell Donald Trump, or he’ll want that rewritten). The Wellington hit the sea some two miles off Sker point and all eight on board died. The terrible blunder got no apology from the tanker’s captain, just the buck-passing excuse that his crew were only acting in accordance with the Admiralty’s Merchant Shipping instructions. It’s what made America great…

■The next day a Wellington from RAF Dale tumbled into the sea near South Stack lighthouse on Ynys Môn and the crew of six all died. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), formed in 1915, was baffled and never established the cause of the crash.

■Four more airmen died when their Avro Anson on a night navigation exercise from RAF Cranage in Cheshire got lost in drizzle and fog and came to a sorry end flying into the lower flanks of Mynydd Rhiwabon near Llangollen. They never did get to learn how to navigate.

■After the engine of a Beaufighter failed during take off from RAF St Athan, the pilot was unable to hold the nose down and the plane went into a vertical climb, stalled and dived into the ground at the airfield, killing the crew of three.

■On August 23rd, a Botha from RAF Squires Gate was on a navigation exercise when it flew into impenetrable cloud on the eastern edge of Eryri and proceeded to strike the north-eastern slopes of Tal y Fan above the Conwy valley. The crew of five all died. Fragments of wreckage are still being found on Wales’ most northerly mountain.

■On the same day, a USAAF Douglas ‘Skytrain’ was transferring American personnel from RAF Prestwick in Glasgow to RAF Atcham when, descending through cloud, the large plane hit Moel y Gaer in the Clwydian Range. There were 13 on board, four crew and nine passengers; all except one passenger died in the impact and resulting fire. The aircraft came down close to one of the best preserved of Wales’ many iron age hillforts.

■A Spitfire from RAF Fairwood Common on a training exercise over Gŵyr went into a spin from a height of 5,000 feet and plunged nose first into marshy ground four miles west of the base at Broad Pool. The pilot must have died immediately but, amazingly, the plane remained intact. Today Broad Pool, and its surrounding heathland Cefn Bryn Common, is a Wildlife Trust reserve.

■A trainee flying a Spitfire from RAF Llandow was attempting to master the aerobatics that were essential for fighter planes. Near Pontypŵl he practised a steep climb followed by a turn at the top but it seems he blacked out. At maximum velocity the Spitfire dived into undulating ground adjacent to Llandegfedd Reservoir and the pilot was killed.

■Into September, the first fatality occurred at RAF Wrexham (opened 1941) when a Beaufighter stalled on takeoff, made contact with a Blenheim parked near the runway and burst into flames. Both airmen aboard died.

■A Spitfire from RAF Llandow, practising low-flying in the valley of the Afon Wysg (River Usk) near Llangatwg, hit a tree and crashed into a field, killing the pilot.

■Another RAF Llandow Spitfire also crashed on the same day. Undone by the very difficult art of aerobatics, the pilot was killed when the plane went into an unstoppable spin and impacted the ground in meadows alongside the Afon Elái (River Ely) near Llantrisant. The Royal Glamorgan Hospital was built on the site in 1999.

■One more RAF Llandow Spitfire was destroyed and its pilot killed when it crashed into the sea five miles from the coastline at Porthcawl. The body was never recovered.

■The pilot of a Hurricane from RAF Speke failed to execute a sharp and steep turn correctly during training over Flintshire. The plane stalled and the pilot died when it crashed into the delightful rolling countryside at the old Holywell Hunt racecourse (final meeting 1867) at Pantasaph.

■A Queen Wasp, a pilotless aircraft made by Airspeed Ltd at Portsmouth for use in target practice, was taken on a routine piloted evaluation flight from RAF Manorbier on September 15th. But, for unknown reasons, the Queen Wasp flew straight into the sea near Ynys Byr (Caldey Island). Neither the pilot nor the wreck were ever found.

■A Spitfire from RAF Llandow on a training exercise broke up in mid-air after the pilot lost control when going into a steep dive over northern Cardiff. The wings fell off and the fuselage wafted downwards until it hit one of the fairways at Cardiff Golf Club in Lisvane, killing the pilot and disconcerting the old fogeys at the 19th hole.

■On September 22nd a Defiant from RAF Stormy Down undertaking firing practice on the Glamorgan coast stalled when turning and dropped into the sea in shallow water off Aberafan Beach. The two men on board did not survive the impact.

■The crew of two died when their Beaufighter, flying over the Irish Sea from RAF Fairwood Common, crashed into the sea near Pen Caer (Strumble Head) in Pembrokeshire. The cause of the crash was never established.

■When the engine of a Spitfire from RAF Llandow caught fire approaching RAF St Athan the pilot bailed out promptly but, cruelly, his parachute didn’t fully open and he was killed just south of Sain Tathan village. The Spitfire crashed into a field near the RAF station.

■On September 25th a Wellington from RAF Chipping Warden in Northamptonshire flew into Fan Hir, a lofty sandstone escarpment in Bannau Brycheniog, while on a night training flight. The landlady of the Gwyn Arms in the nearest village Glyntawe saw the fire burning on the mountains and her son and his two friends were able to climb the perilous ridges and help the injured while assistance was summoned. All the crew of five initially survived, but later one died in Neath Hospital. The Gwyn Arms is still a going concern, now dependent on the parasitic tourism market that Wales has been sadly reduced to serving.

■A Whitley from RAF Honeybourne flew into Foel Fras in the Carneddau mountains of Eryri while on a night-time exercise, killing all five on board. Significant debris from the crash was recovered in the 1980s and is now displayed at the Shropshire Aero Club for those who want to gawp at a bit of twisted metal.

■To end the month, a Spitfire from RAF Fairwood Common got lost in torrential rain. In thick fog the plane then hit Moel Cynhordy above Nant Cwm Du near Pontycymer and the pilot was killed.

■A pair of Miles Master training planes from RAF Tern Hill were flying in formation, with the lead plane doing the navigating, when they ploughed one after the other into hillside at Coed Tŷ Mawr in the narrow upper reaches of the exquisite Afon Gwesyn valley in Breconshire. The two men aboard the lead plane died, while those on the other plane were unscathed. The peat bogs, oak woods, rare wildlife, ancient archaeology, spectacular vistas and blissful solitude of the Abergwesyn Commons are now protected by the National Trust.

■A Beaufighter from RAF Fairwood Common was critically disabled when a piston disintegrated and the engine seized. It spun into the ground at Southgate Farm on Gŵyr and both the crew were killed. The Farm is now ‘holiday cottages’ in a part of Gŵyr being remorselessly ruined by over-development, holiday lets and Anglicisation.

■A Spitfire from RAF Hawarden soon encountered problems over Ewloe and spun into a field close to the Boars Head Inn in the Flintshire village, killing the pilot. The 400-year-old Boars Head, a very rare example of a purpose-built 17th century inn, was demolished in 2019 to make way for a hideous block of 28 flats – no less than three of which are actually “affordable”!

■On a long journey from RAF Pengam Moors (opened 1938) to northern Wales and back to “gain experience”, the solo pilot of a Miles Master ignored standing orders about how to deal with bad weather and, when that weather duly arrived, paid the price. The aircraft struck rising but not particularly high ground in Radnorshire at Llanfihangel Rhydithon and he died.

■On October 15th a De Havilland Mosquito that had only just left De Havilland’s factory in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and been allocated to RAF St Athan for installation of equipment, set off on a test flight with two pilots on board. The Mosquito, one of the fastest planes in the world at the time, failed the test. It started to break up in mid-air after completing a loop, the tail severed from the fuselage as it jackhammered towards the ground and, with no time to bail out, both pilots died when the plane was flattened in the rough pastures and scrubland of Pen-y-coedcae above Pontypridd.

■Following maintenance work on a Wellington, two pilots took it for a test flight from RAF Dale. They stayed in the area, flying low over St Brides Bay, but suddenly keeled into the sea near Ynys Dewi (Ramsey Island) and both men drowned.

■A Beaufighter from RAF Talbenny in Pembrokeshire, only opened a few months previously, set off on an interception patrol at eight in the morning on October 16th. The plane was never seen again and the two missing airmen were eventually presumed dead.

■Two of the three on board a Douglas Boston attack aircraft from RAF Bradwell Bay in Essex died when the plane ran into the stone fortress of Carnedd Dafydd in Eryri. The pilot, albeit seriously injured, somehow survived. Almost the entire intact aircraft remained at the crash site right through to 1977, when it was removed for a restoration project. A discreet engraved plaque now suffices as a memorial.

■Three Spitfires from RAF Llanbedr were on a cloud training exercise over the Irish Sea when they all went missing, the last radio communication with Llanbedr having been at mid-day. For two days air searches found nothing in atrocious weather until the skies cleared and the three Spitfires were found together, wrecked and burnt out, at Tarrenhendre, a great, heather-covered hulk in southern Eryri. All three pilots had died.

■October concluded with a farcical mishap in the sky above Bangor. On a training exercise, a Beaufighter from RAF Woodvale in Lancashire collided with a Wellington from RAF Finningley in Yorkshire. The planes came down in fields near Bangor. The two-man crew in the Beaufighter and the five-man crew in the Wellington all died in a horrible mangle of burnt wreckage.

■On 3rd November a Hudson from RAF Carew Cheriton, undertaking bombing practice on a mock tank at Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, failed to gain elevation as it turned towards the target and crashed through a hedge bordering the lane to Rhoscrowther a mile east of the beach. The aircraft ignited and three of the four-man crew were killed while the fourth survived but suffered life-changing injuries. Although Freshwater West remains a marvellous sandy beach, it is surrounded by the vast oil refinery at Rhoscrowther to the north and the British Army’s huge Castlemartin gunnery and armoured vehicle training area to the south, a no-go zone throughout the year. And all this is in a supposedly protected ‘National Park’!

■The pilot of a Spitfire on a training exercise from RAF Llandow was unable to control the aircraft using instruments only when entering banks of cloud near the coast and crashed into the water off Nash Point. Plane and pilot were lost forever somewhere in the Severn Sea.

■An RAF Llandow Spitfire pilot was killed when his plane came into contact with another Llandow Spitfire during formation flying and was destroyed after crashing into fields at Race Farm alongside the old Abergavenny-Newport road near Croesyceiliog. The Farm is still there, but the road (A4042) is now a carbon-belching four-lane dual carriageway.

■An Anson, flying from RAF Llandwrog on a night navigation exercise, encountered stormy weather over Llŷn and crashed into the sea off Llanbedrog. All five on board met a watery grave.

■The crew of an Airspeed Oxford training aircraft from RAF Shawbury got off lightly when four out of the five on board survived a collision with the summit of grandiose Moel Sych in the Berwyn Range.

■Everything went wrong very suddenly on November 16th for the crew of a Lancaster from RAF Holme in Yorkshire. A photoflash bomb exploded, the big plane disintegrated and it hit Moel Ddolwen above the spellbinding Nant yr Eira valley in Montgomeryshire, killing the entire crew of seven.

■Carrying out target towing from RAF Towyn, a Henley just disappeared. It was a couple of days before the wreckage was discovered on the fierce cliffs of Craig Cwm Silyn in the western flanks of Eryri. The pilot was dead. Recovery teams had a tough task; inaccessible shards of debris couldn’t be cleared up and the engine was allowed to tumble into Llynnau Cwm Silyn, the twin lakes embraced by the mountain, where it lies rusting to this day.

■On November 20th an Anson from RAF Penrhos was on a training flight when it flew into Moel Eilio, a steep barrier looming over the Afon Gwyrfai valley. People in the village of Betws Garmon far below heard the shuddering impact. All five occupants died; four instantly and one slowly of shock and exposure before rescuers could reach him. The scar marking where the Anson crashed has been cheapened by some pea-brain adding a superfluous, tasteless and presumptuous row of five white crucifixes.

■After an anti-submarine patrol, a Whitley heading for RAF Carew Cheriton didn’t get the approach right, clipped treetops and crashed beyond the airfield’s perimeter. The pilot was the sole fatality; the other five airmen survived.

■For unknown reasons a Spitfire from RAF Llandow dived out of control into the pastures of Flemingstone Court Farm (still there) outside the village of Flemingston (Trefflemin) close to RAF St Athan. The pilot died.

■The Foster Wikner Warferry was a dinky two-seater leisure plane, a few of which were conscripted into non-combat service to help out the RAF in WW2. On November 26th a Warferry was on a private flight from RAF Northolt in Middlesex to RAF St Athan when it struck the cable of a barrage balloon attached to an Air-Sea Rescue pontoon at Barry Island and fell into the sea near Barry Docks. One of the two men on board died.

■A Beaufighter from RAF Pembrey departed at midday for an interception patrol – and was never sighted or heard from again. Eventually the two airmen aboard were recorded as dead.

■On November 28th an Anson from RAF Penrhos flew into the steepling face of Foel Gron near Betws Garmon in Eryri and the crew of five all died. It would have been quick.

■On the evening of December 6th a force of 272 planes from RAF bases across England set off for a major bombing attack on German railways. The raid was a complete failure: the target area around Mannheim was covered in cloud, only feeble incendiary bombs were dropped, 12 aircraft were shot down and 55 aircrew were killed and 10 injured. It got worse returning to the UK. One of the bombers crashed in England and another, a Lancaster, in Wales. 300 miles off course, the plane was attempting to land at RAF Carew Cheriton when it pitched into Carmarthen Bay near Tenby with the loss of the entire seven-man crew.

■In low cloud a Spitfire from RAF Rednal hit the scary stone ramparts between Cadair Bronwen and Cadair Berwyn in Denbighshire The plane’s last location was known, so the following day a Lysander from Rednal was dispatched to search for the missing Spitfire. Tragically, the Lysander suffered a similar fate. The pilot had actually located the Spitfire and flew low over the high valley of Nant Cwm Tywyll circling back to the crash site but was caught in a vicious downdraught and hit Cadair Bronwen’s steep ridge not far from the Spitfire wreckage. The pilot died instantly. The seriously injured pilot of the Spitfire had actually survived his crash, but the poor blighter died of overnight exposure on the mountain waiting for the help that never arrived.

■When young men are given free rein at the controls of powerful flying machines, boy-racer over-confidence, showing off and peer pressure can be real dangers. This was demonstrated on December 22nd when the pilot and crew on a Wellington from RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, on a training exercise over Wales, ignored strict navigation rules and chose to indulge in some fancy low-flying. Result: the plane hit a hedge just outside the village of Gerlan near Bethesda and all five on board died.

■The solo pilot of a Defiant from RAF Rhoose (opened 1942) assigned to assess the searchlights around Newport, drifted well off course in low cloud and flew into fields in undulating countryside at Wayne Farm (still operating), south of Cross Ash in Gwent. He died in the impact.

■The last fatal accident of the year happened on December 29th when a Wellington from RAF Westcott in Buckinghamshire encountered a bank of cloud at night over the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire. The pilot lost control of the plane and all the crew bailed out, but two of the five were killed in the hasty descent. The Wellington crashed in the dip between Mynydd Morvil and Mynydd Trenewydd.

1943
■On New Years Day a Beaufighter from RAF Fairwood Common was conducting air tests over the Severn in windy conditions when one of its engines began to fail. With white smoke pouring out of the aircraft, the crew of two desperately tried to get back to base. But the Beaufighter gradually lost height and, still 25 miles from home, crashed into the rough seas and immediately sank. Both plane and crew disappeared into the depths.

■When the pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Llandow lost control in storm-force winds, the plane went into a high-speed dive. A hopeless attempt to pull out of the dive only led to the plane disintegrating into the Severn off Dunraven Head. The pilot was killed.

■On January 3rd a B-24 Liberator, a big American plane operated by the USAAF from its own heavy-bomber base at RAF Shipdham in Norfolk, was returning from a bombing mission at the strategic French port of Saint-Nazaire when it ran out of fuel. A couple of miles south-west of Haverfordwest, it crashed into fields between Denant Farm and New House Farm (both still there today) and three of the ten-man crew died.

■On the same day, another B-24 Liberator returning to the same RAF base from the same mission also ran out of juice over Pembrokeshire and also crashed at New House Farm – but a different one, in the north of the county between Treamlod and Casnewydd-bach. This time only one of the crew of 10 died.

■There was a plethora of fatalities on January 11th. In the early hours of the morning a Whitley on a night navigation exercise from RAF Tilstock in Shropshire flew straight into ground at Gwernto Farm (still operating) near Bwlchgwyn in Denbighshire and all eight airmen on board were killed.

■In the daytime a Flying Fortress bomber of the USAAF, stationed at RAF Thurleigh in Bedfordshire, got caught in bad weather over Pembrokeshire and hit Foel Cwmcerwyn, the highest point of the Preselis. It was a glancing blow and the plane did not ignite, so seven of the eight-man crew survived, but one did not.

■To complete a bad day, as darkness fell again a Beaufighter from RAF Fairwood Common on a night flying test stalled when taking off and crashed into the woodlands of Clyne Valley, just a mile from the base. Both men on board died.

■An Anson from RAF Llandwrog had an unscheduled night-time meeting with the eighth highest mountain in Wales, Foel Grach in Eryri’s dramatic Carneddau Range. Initially all the four-man crew survived the impact. One man was not too badly injured so was able to descend from the high plateau seeking help. It wasn’t until the next day that he reached Rowlyn Isaf Farm six miles away in the Carneddau foothills. Search parties were mustered but in terrible weather it took another day to find the crash site. One of the three men was still alive, but it was too late for the other two.

■Both men aboard a Beaufighter from RAF Fairwood Common were killed when the aircraft, on a daytime patrol, ditched into the sea after an engine cut out near the isolated Smalls Lighthouse, 20 miles off the Pembrokeshire coast. They didn’t manage to bail out in time.

■A Spitfire from RAF Llandow came into contact with another Spitfire while formation flying. It tumbled to earth at Cross Barn Farm near St Hilary in the Vale of Glamorgan and the pilot died. The other plane drifted downwards into the sea five miles away off St Athan and the pilot survived.

■Death descended from the skies on January 26th when a Wellington from RAF Harwell caught fire in flight at night, struck the ancient hillfort of Coed-y-Gaer near Offa’s Dyke, catapulted back into the air, somersaulted down the steep slopes of Craig-y-rhiw and smashed into Bwlch-y-rhiw Farm. The aircraft’s five-man crew had died before the Wellington reached the Farm but in the resulting inferno the farmer and his wife also died, although their two children and a house guest somehow got out alive. The rebuilt Farm is still there, but the peaceful beauty of the area is currently destroyed by the British Army’s use of Craig-y-Rhiw as a gunnery range.

■Two Spitfires from RAF Aston Down collided while practising manoeuvres over the Severn Estuary. One Spitfire downed into the Severn off Rogiet on the Gwent coast, killing the pilot, while the pilot of the other Spitfire managed to pull off a successful forced landing near Magor.

■The pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Rednal died near Mostyn in Flintshire when attempting a forced landing after engine failure.

■An American B24 Liberator was on a return flight from Gibraltar to RAF Talbenny with 19 people on board when its engine exploded approaching the airfield. The pilot lost control and it came down in a field near the runway. Rescue teams from Talbenny responded quickly and evacuated eight seriously injured survivors, but the other 11 were found dead.

■Into February, during a low-flying exercise a Spitfire from RAF Llanbedr suffered engine failure and crash-landed at Traeth Crugan, a beach west of Pwllheli, resulting in the pilot’s death.

■A Halifax bomber was heading to RAF Valley from RAF Leeming when its engine caught fire approaching Valley. The plane nose-dived into the ground near Pontrhydbont (Four Mile Bridge), the ancient original crossing point over the Cymyran Strait that separates Ynys Môn from Ynys Gybi (Holy Island), and all eight on board were killed. Housing now covers the crash site.

■A Wellington travelling between RAF Chivenor and RAF Tain in north-east Scotland got into difficulties over Cardigan Bay on February 3rd. The pilot sent out a distress signal, but nothing more was heard and neither the aircraft nor its eight occupants were ever found. It is believed it sank in deep sea twenty miles off the coast.

■Next, a Hudson surveillance aircraft from RAF Silloth in Cumberland was flying at night in the mountains of Eryri when it hit Llechog, part of a long crest of precipitous jagged cliffs rising up to Yr Wyddfa itself. Unsurprisingly, none of the four occupants survived.

■The Mustang was an American-manufactured long-range fighter used by the RAF in the second half of WW2. The Mustang series would become established among the greatest of fighter planes right through to the 1980s. However things can always go wrong, as shown when a Mustang from RAF Hawarden hit a pole when low-flying over Prestatyn and crashed into the sea, killing the pilot.

■The pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Llandow on a routine training flight inadvertently let the tip of a wing touch the ground while low-flying. Climbing steeply away, the plane disintegrated. Burnt shards of fuselage were strewn over a wide area of the Vale of Glamorgan from Pendoylan to Tresimwn (Bonvilston), with the pilot’s corpse among them.

■Another RAF Llandow Spitfire was destroyed and its pilot killed after it hit a large, mature oak tree at Gowlog Farm (still there) near Llancarfan in the Vale. The AAIB pinned the blame squarely on the 20-year-old pilot. He had been performing unauthorised aerobatics.

■On February 12th a Wellington from RAF Pershore had to be abandoned after it iced up during night exercises. Four of the five occupants parachuted to ground without harm, but the other man didn’t. He died in hill country amid the plane’s wreckage near Llanrahaeadr-ym-Mochnant.

■A Wellington from RAF Hixon in Staffordshire was on a navigation exercise when the crew encountered bad visibility over Wales and blindly flew into the north-east flank of Foel Grach in the Carneddau area of Eryri. All five died. It took two days for search teams to locate the crash site and recover the bodies. Jarring fragments of the wreckage can still be seen today all over the mountain, from the high peat bogs to the dizzy vertical slopes – the cheapskate option, subsequently twisted cynically into ‘respect for the dead’

■On February 14th the solo pilot of a Mustang from RAF Hawarden, bewildered by cloud cover, died when he flew into Moel Famau, the highest point of the Clwydian Range. The plane only just missed the ‘Jubilee Tower’, the remaining stump of a rather embarrassing, never-completed and partially demolished 1810 commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of mentally ill monarch George III (1738-1820).

■Far more RAF Llandow Spitfires crashed in accidents than were ever shot down by the Luftwaffe. Two more collided in mid-air during formation flying practice on February 15th, perhaps dazzled by the low sun. Both planes careered into the Severn off St Athan; one of the pilots was rescued by a convoy ship, the body of the other was never found.

■The fast and dangerous Dornier utility aircraft was a menace throughout the War, so it was a real coup for RAF Fairwood Common when two of it’s Beaufighters shot down a Dornier from GAF Gilze-Rijen (Holland) in a dog-fight above Swansea. The Dornier’s engine caught fire and, in a slow death loop, it descended into the sea off Port Eynon where the spreading oil set the waves alight. Only one of the four men who died was ever found. In 1992 the plane’s undercarriage and engines were located on the sea-bed.

■On a short solo test flight from RAF Fairwood Common a Beaufighter got into trouble while returning to base, stalling then spinning into boggy ground near Werganrows Farm (which still exists) on the airfield’s eastern perimeter. The pilot died.

■At the end of February a Mustang from RAF Hawarden was struck by a bird as it returned to base. The pilot circled round and attempted a second approach, but then the plane stalled, crashed and caught fire. Desperate attempts to pull him out of the burning wreckage failed.

■Engine failure on a night flight scuppered an Anson from RAF Penrhos on March 1st. Out of control, the plane plummeted into marshland at Lleuar Fawr Farm (still there) in the Afon Llyfni valley and all five crew were killed.

■Nearly four weeks without air fatalities in Wales came to an end on March 27th when a Spitfire from RAF Llandow on aerobatic practice at 25,000 feet suddenly dived vertically from the sky, piledriving into the ground near the 15th century Greendown Inn at Drope in the Vale of Glamorgan. It goes without saying the pilot died; he had blacked out after a systems failure cut off his oxygen supply. The Greendown Inn called last orders in 2014 and was converted into housing.

■The next day two Spitfires from RAF Llandow were destroyed and both pilots killed when their wing-tips touched during formation practice. They crashed about a mile apart near St Athan, one at 16th century listed building Flemingston Court, the other at Pantynawel Farm, still a going concern.

■On March 31st a Blenheim from RAF Bicester, on a long-range navigation exercise, flew into the northern face of Elidir Fawr, a mighty mountain five miles north of Yr Wyddfa. A search team from RAF Llandwrog, hampered by bad weather, didn’t find the wreckage and the remains of the three-man crew until April 13th. Scraps of burnt aluminium and pieces of undercarriage are still apparent around the crash site today.

■A Spitfire from RAF Llandow incurred engine failure shortly after take off and had to make a forced landing. In doing so, it clattered into another Spitfire preparing to take off on the runway and both pilots died in the ensuing fierce fire.

■A USAAF Flying Fortress, travelling via a convoluted route from its base in Florida to RAF St Eval, got completely lost after setting off from Marrakesh in Morocco on the last leg of the long journey. Over the Bay of Biscay the aircraft was buffeted by turbulence and bedevilled by thunder, lightning and thick clouds. Unable to use the radio equipment because it would be picked up by the Germans, the plane was over the Irish Sea before the crew could establish their location. But, running out of fuel, further confused by incorrect radar readings and flying blind in more cloud cover, navigation went awry again and the heavy bomber crashed into Foel Cwmcerwyn in the Preselis. The airmen were lucky: there was no fire and they had just avoided the mountain’s sheer eastern slopes. Nevertheless, one of the eight-man crew died later in hospital and there was a particularly upsetting second casualty: Booger, the crew’s terrier mascot.

■A Wellington returning from a bombing mission over Frankfurt to RAF Middleton St George in Durham was abandoned after becoming lost over Carmarthen Bay. Four of the five-man crew parachuted to safety near Tenby, but one dropped into the sea and drowned.

■On April 23rd an RAF Llandow Spitfire hit the ground when recovering from a dive near Gilfach Goch. Just avoiding terraced housing in Evanstown, it burst into flames in the Nant Abercerdin valley, killing the pilot.

■Engine failure sent a Mustang from RAF Hawarden crashing into rising ground at Nannerch, on the eastern edge of the Clwydian Range in Flintshire, and the pilot died in the impact.

■On May 2nd, a Wellington on a cross-country navigation exercise from RAF Dalton in Yorkshire overshot the runway when attempting to land at RAF Penrhos and continued at pace into a tree, killing the crew of four.

■A Blenheim setting off on a routine training exercise from RAF Pembrey almost immediately got into trouble, plunging into the ground near Pant-teg Farm (which still exists) just east of the the airfield. All four on board died. The subsequent investigation could find no cause for the crash.

■An Oxford training plane from RAF Weston-Super-Mare dived vertically out of cloud and crashed at high velocity into the ground at Turners Farm (subsequently built over) near Sgeti, a western suburb of Swansea. The solo pilot perished and the cause of the crash was never established.

■The crew of six were killed outright when the engine of a Wellington from RAF Lichfield caught fire on a night mission and the bulky bomber slammed into steep slopes close to the towering dam of the Llyn Efyrnwy (Lake Vyrnwy) reservoir in Montgomeryshire. The massive reservoir was built in the 1880s to supply free water to Liverpool. It flooded farms, the thriving Welsh-speaking village of Llanwddyn and the entire upper valley of the Afon Efyrnwy without Wales receiving a single penny of compensation. Liverpool Council has never even apologised.

■The immaturity of so many RAF airmen was shockingly confirmed by two young Welshmen on May 17th. Flying a Beaufighter on a marathon journey from RAF Port Ellen on Islay in the Inner Hebrides to RAF St Athan for equipment fitting, the pair decided to take an unsanctioned jaunt over their home towns of Hirwaun and Ferndale to show off to friends and family. After Hirwaun was successfully buzzed, they crossed the mountains between the Cynon and the Rhondda Fach valleys, but the cocky 20-year-old pilot got his low-flying antics wrong and the plane crashed, with awful irony, near Ferndale Cemetery, just missing Highfield’s houses. Both men died.

■On a training flight from RAF Finmere in Buckinghamshire, a Douglas Boston day bomber approached RAF Talbenny with only one engine working. The plane overshot the runway, went into a spin trying to make a second approach and dived into ground at Hoaten south of the airfield, killing the three airmen.

■On June 4th, on the last leg of transatlantic ferrying flights from the USA to RAF Andrews Field in Essex via South America and Africa, two USAAF Martin B26 Marauders drifted off course in bad weather over Wales. One flew into Carn Llidi, a dramatic craggy peak near Penmaen Dewi, killing the four men aboard; the other crashed into fields at Barclay Farm (still existing) near Pwll on the Carmarthenshire coast, and its four airmen also died.

■During a night-time foray the two-man crew of a Beaufighter from RAF Valley were seemingly blinded by searchlights over Abergele. They both died when the plane crashed in wooded uplands south of the town.

■After the engine of a Whitley from RAF Whitchurch in Shropshire failed, four of the five-man crew parachuted to safety while the pilot attempted a bold emergency landing at RAF Hawarden. His heroics were in vain; with the undercarriage raised, the aircraft overshot the runway and crashed. The pilot died as the plane burnt to cinders.

■An Anson on a training flight from RAF Carew Cheriton was descending through cloud to get a navigational fix when it hit an unexpected incline at Rosemary Hill in the rolling countryside north of Haverfordwest. The solo pilot was killed.

■A Mosquito from RAF Fairwood Common was on a test flight following a major inspection and engine overhaul when, just 10 minutes after take off, one of the two engines caught fire. The pilot immediately turned for home over the sea at Pwll Du Head. But losing height and with an engine blazing, he couldn’t quite make it back to Fairwood Common and the plane crashed into a hedge at long gone Fair Acres Farm near Pennard. Both men on board were seriously injured and died the following day.

■In bad visibility on July 6th a Lancaster bomber from RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire flew into Moel Pentre-wern above the Afon Elwy valley at Llangernyw in Denbighshire. The crew of six were all killed.

■The solo pilot of a USAAF Republic Thunderbolt high-altitude fighter plane based at RAF Atcham lost his way in thick cloud and was killed when the aircraft collided with the labyrinth of intertwining mountains at Dreboeth near Glyndyfrdwy.

■On July 24th a Mosquito from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire had to be abandoned over Montgomeryshire when the engine caught fire. But, in an agonising muddle, the parachute of the first jumper got entangled around the plane’s tail and the second man could not then execute his jump. Before they knew it the Mosquito crashed in the lush countryside close to Pentrenant Hall and they were both killed. Pentrenant, an early 19th century Grade II listed country house near Churchstoke (Yr Ystog), is nowadays a ‘Christian Holiday Centre’, God help us…

■The pilot died when his Spitfire from RAF Rednal went into an unstoppable dive and smashed into Moel Truan near (still operating) Bryn Tangor Farm on the northern slopes of the Afon Morwynion valley. Since then the idyllic valley has been mutilated by marching lines of massive pylons erected for the UK’s ‘national grid’, bringing neither electricity nor benefit to Wales.

■Another RAF Rednal Spitfire met with disaster the next day during firing practice at Prestatyn beach. Somehow the plane rather than its gunfire hit the target and the pilot died on the sands.

■On July 28th a Miles Master advanced training plane from RAF Calveley in Cheshire flew into Mynydd Rhiwabon after the solo pilot misjudged a low-flying exercise. He died in the impact.

■It wasn’t just the RAF that used aircraft in WW2, the Royal Navy did also – via its Fleet Air Arm (FAA) for planes based on aircraft carriers or ships, and its Royal Navy Air Stations (RNAS), originally for seaplanes that took off from water. At first, the only RNAS facility in Wales was based at Lawrenny Pembrokeshire in 1942, quite a way inland on the River Cleddau, and called RNAS Lawrenny Ferry. The location, where the ebb tides and flood tides were complicated by a confluence of three rivers, proved to be unsuitable so it was relocated in 1943 to a new site, RNAS Angle at the mouth of Milford Haven. That too was short-lived and, remaining in Pembrokeshire, it settled at RNAS Dale on the other side of the Haven in 1943. The problem with RNAS Lawrenny Ferry was exemplified on August 4th when a Supermarine Walrus amphibious bi-plane, manufactured at the Supermarine factory in Southampton, was returning to base after a short-range maritime patrol when a wing tip hit the water as it landed, the plane capsized in the strong tidal currents and the solo pilot drowned.

■A Blenheim from RAF Pembrey, on a training flight with three trainee pupils on board, was last seen heading out over Carmarthen Bay – and was never seen again. Weeks later the body of the pilot was washed up in northern Pembrokeshire and then one of the trainees came ashore at Cefn Sidan beach not far from Pembrey. The sea didn’t release the bodies of the other two or any of the Blenheim’s flotsam.

■On August 18th a Lockheed Ventura set off from RAF Sculthorpe in Norfolk on a night-flying training exercise. Going way off course, the plane ended up amid the mountain peaks of Eryri. It crashed into the ridge connecting Carnedd Dafydd and Pen yr Ole Wen above Llyn Ogwen and all four on board died. An extensive wreckage trail remains to this day.

■For reasons that were never determined, a Whitley from RAF Ashbourne in Derbyshire dived headlong into the Severn at night just off the coast at Goldcliff near Newport. It exploded and sank and the crew of four all died.

■A Botha from RAF Hooton Park entered cloud banks over the Welsh coast on August 28th and mistakenly flew inland, straight into the great mass of Llwytmor three miles south of Llanfairfechan. None of the four on board survived. It took three days for the mountain rescue team at RAF Llandwrog to find the wreckage and recover the dead. Scandalously, Llwytmor is still strewn with large piles of metal debris over 80 years later.

■Into September, an Anson from RAF Penrhos suddenly broke up in mid-air and fell to earth at still existing Parciau Farm, a mile north east of Caernarfon alongside the Menai Strait. All four of the crew were killed instantly.

■On September 5th a Lancaster on a cross-country exercise from RAF Winthorpe in Nottinghamshire with a full complement of eight on board flew into a ferocious thunderstorm over Bannau Brycheiniog and encountered the mighty sandstone walls of Fan Foel in the Mynydd Du. Nobody survived. The large scar left by the impact is still apparent, along with the usual scattered debris nobody has bothered to remove. This isn’t ‘respect’ for the dead as some insincerely assert; it’s strutting military exceptionalism dressed up as compassion.

■At RAF St Athan a Beaufighter stalled during take off, flipped back into the runway and burst into flames, killing the solo pilot.

■A Wellington from RAF Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire was on a long navigation exercise encircling Wales when the crew identified mechanical issues over the Irish Sea and decided to land at RAF Talbenny. But the tricky approach from the north was miscalculated and the aircraft slammed into high cliffs at Ticklas Point and fell back into the sea, killing the entire crew of six. At low water, remains of the Wellington can sometimes be seen from the top of the cliff, sticking out of the inaccessible sand far below.

■On September 9th, an Anson on a gunnery exercise from RAF Mona (opened 1941) was flying along the north coast of Llŷn when it hit a thick transporter cable that ran from the granite quarries of Gyrn Ddu to a jetty on the coast. The aircraft crashed into the sea near the village of Trefor. Rescuers rowed out in heavy seas and saved three men but the plane sank before the remaining three could be reached. The Gyrn Ddu quarries are now defunct, leaving just the ravaged landscape they created – a typical example of the reckless environmental vandalism that is so common throughout Wales.

■Flying from RAF Madley in Herefordshire, a Percival Proctor was above Bannau Brycheiniog when it abruptly went into a manic spin and clattered into the moorlands of Rhos Fawr a couple of miles east of Talgarth, only just missing two local women who were digging up potatoes. Both men on board died.

■On September 15th the engine of a Sea Hurricane from RNAS Dale failed during take off. Without power, the helpless pilot could only overshoot the runway and the plane crashed on the airfield’s western perimeter. He died in the impact.

■On September 16th a fleet of 72 USAAF Flying Fortresses took off from English airfields bound for a major bombing attack on German targets in occupied western France. After a not particularly successful bomb run, hampered by cloud cover, the force turned for home. But bad weather approaching England made formation flying too dangerous, meaning each Fortress had to fly individually. 57 made it home safely, but the other 15 became lost and met a variety of different fates – two crashing in Wales. In thick fog, one flew into Pen Gwyllt Meirch, a majestic curvaceous peak in Bannau Brycheiniog, killing all 10 crewmen; and the other, running out of fuel and losing height, hit rising ground 30 miles away at Upper Cilgee Farm beneath Rhiw Gwraidd near Llandrindod, and likewise the 10 men on board also died. The family living at the Farm, which still exists, were lucky to survive unharmed; the crash was too close for comfort – two of the dead bodies were actually found in the kitchen garden.

■Following an engine failure, the pilot of a Beaufighter on a training flight from RAF Lyneham attempted to make a forced landing but crashed into a tree at Rhuddlan Golf Course (still there) on the outskirts of the Denbighshire town. The pilot died but his navigator escaped with injuries.

■There was a dreadful accident at RAF Stormy Down on September 21st. An Anson, circling the airfield having just taken off, was hit by a Lysander which had been mistakenly ordered to take off too soon. All occupants of the two planes were killed adjacent to the runway: five in the Anson, two in the Lysander.

■As WW2 entered its fifth year, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Nazis were not going to win. America’s entry into the War, the USSR’s victories on the eastern front, the devastating bombing of German cities and military bases, and the relentless diminishment of German finances, weaponry, food supplies and sheer manpower meant there was only going to be one outcome. But Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), like all on the far-right to this day, did not deal in facts and reality – a lesson that needs to be re-learned with a new wave of Fascism on the march. For Hitler the purpose of the War had become the War itself, and even the total destruction of Germany was no deterrent: he was so twisted the annihilation of Germany had become a war aim, a cleansing purge from which a new Reich could emerge. With nothing to lose and all opposition voices silenced, the Nazis now decided to throw everything at the Allies and go out in a hellish orgy of chaos and mass murder. The under-performing Luftwaffe was comprehensively reorganised by its commander Hermann Göring (1893-1946) and geared to a night-fighting system. In late 1943 this tactic began to bear fruit for the fanatical fascist. The aerial war now entered its most lethal phase. October’s first fatalities in Wales came after a very successful bombing attack on German industrial areas by no less than 242 Lancasters. Only two were lost in the entire operation. One of them, based at RAF Woodall Spa in Lincolnshire, crashed into the Severn at Llanilltud Fawr beach in Glamorgan after getting lost and running out of fuel. The Air Sea Rescue Unit at Stormy Down found the seven dead crew members eerily floating on the surface of the water in their life jackets.

■An Anson on a navigation exercise from RAF Bishops Court in County Down flew into the perilous crags of Mynydd Perfedd in Eryri on October 4th. It was the middle of the night and it was snowing heavily. The bodies of the four-man crew were recovered from amongst the shattered wreckage the next day.

■A Beaufighter, returning to RAF Valley after a ferrying flight, broke up in mid-air and hit the ground near Bryn Du on Ynys Môn, not far from the mainline railway. The lone pilot died.

■All five men aboard a Wellington from RAF Chivenor died when the aircraft clipped the surface of the sea at St Brides Bay off Pembrokeshire and disintegrated. Three of the dead were never found.

■On November 3rd a Beaufighter, fresh off the production line at the Bristol company’s Weston-Super-Mare factory, was being flown to RAF Kirkbride in Cumberland when in low visibility it hit the lonely moors of Rhiwabon Mountain. The solo pilot died. The crash crater today is a pointless junkyard full of rusting metal and pieces of fuselage.

■Amazingly, on the same day and barely a mile to the east of the same spot on Rhiwabon Mountain, another crash happened and another pilot died. This time it involved a Miles Martinet target tug plane returning to RAF Hawarden, caught in the same thick clouds that had beaten the Beaufighter.

■A USAAF Douglas Dakota got separated from its squadron on the final stage of a mammoth journey from Ohio to RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall and got hopelessly lost over the Irish Sea. Not having a clue where the plane was, the pilot descended through fog only to come face to face with wild, rocky Foel Feddau, the second highest peak in the Preselis, topped by a Bronze Age burial cairn. He attempted an emergency climb, which slowed the aircraft’s speed but didn’t prevent it crashing, and in the impact propeller blades sheared off into the cockpit and killed him. However, the slow speed meant the other seven men on board survived with minor injuries. Local people who had heard the crash made their way to the wreck to give help but at first the Yanks hid in the heather, in their profound ignorance thinking the Welsh being spoken was German! Eventually personnel from RAF Haverfordwest (opened 1942) put them right. Being an American plane, every piece of the broken aircraft was efficiently cleared away in three weeks.

■The entire crew of five on an Anson from RAF Halfpenny Green in Staffordshire lost their lives on November 8th when the plane crashed into Pen yr Ole Wen high above the spectacular Nant Ffrancon valley in Eryri. On a night navigation exercise, the Anson had ended up in such a dangerous place because the crew failed to compensate for the drifting effects of a 15mph wind from the north west. The aircraft’s engines were torn off in the impact and tumbled 1000 feet down the sheer north-east side of the mountain to settle by the banks of Ffynnon Lloer, a magical glacial lake cloistered in a rocky basin. None of the unsightly mess has been removed.

■On November 17th a Whitley on a navigational exercise from RAF Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire flew into a severe thunderstorm over Pembrokeshire and was struck by lightning. The Whitley exploded in mid-air and dropped to the ground in multiple pieces at still existing New Inn Farm, four miles west of Tenby. It took days to recover the widely scattered aircraft fragments and the body parts of the six dead airmen.

■In dense cloud, an Anson from RAF Penrhos flew into the unyielding rocky outcrops and crevices of Craig Cwm Silyn in Eryri’s westerly zones. All five on board were killed.

■A Miles Martinet from RAF Pembrey was returning to base when, for reasons never established, it came down at Ty-newydd Farm (no longer a working farm) two miles east of the airfield, killing both men on board.

■On December 15th a Henley set off from RAF Carew Cheriton to transport an officer to RAF Pengam Moors, but only minutes into the flight the plane suddenly took a steep downward trajectory, probably due to engine failure, and crashed into farmland (the farm no longer exists) at Cold Inn, a mile west of Saundersfoot. Both pilot and passenger died.

■The Handley Page Hampden, considered an obsolete aircraft, was being phased out throughout 1943 by Bomber Command. One of the last was flying from RAF Aldergrove in Belfast to RAF Hawarden for scrapping when it rolled over on its descent to the airfield, clipped a building, crashed upside down on the runway and burst into flames, killing the solo pilot.

■Two Proctors from RAF Madley in Herefordshire were flying together over Wales when their wings touched. For one of the planes it was a fatal error: it crashed near the hamlet of Cathedin on the east flank of the lovely Afon Llynfi valley in Bannau Brycheiniog and both men aboard were killed. The other Proctor was able to return to base virtually undamaged.

■On Boxing Day, an Anson from RAF Llandwrog crashed at Gellfawr Farm (still working) between the sheer mountains of Garn and Bwlch y Llan that loom over Abermaw. The crew of four all died.

■On December 31st a Wellington from RAF Moreton-in-Marsh on a navigation exercise over Wales got into serious trouble in the mountainous topography, icing up when it went too high. Descending at speed towards water the crew had spotted through a gap in the clouds, the aircraft carved into high rocky terrain near Caenewydd, two miles from Aberdyfi. Three of the crew died, the other two were badly injured but survived.

1944
■More air crashes occurred in 1944 than in any other year from the invention of the aeroplane right through to today. This can be explained by Germany’s reckless desperation, Japan’s harakiri culture, the USA brandishing its power by chucking the kitchen sink at the War, and the UK’s obsessive policy, imposed by RAF chief Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris (1892-1984), of bombing German cities to oblivion. In 1944 the theatre of War shifted away from the Atlantic to mainland Europe, north Africa and the Pacific, as the allies, under Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) since the end of 1943, prepared for D-Day in June 1944. This meant that air traffic, and therefore crashes, over Wales did not noticeably increase despite the global surge in fatalities. The first incident of the year happened on January 4th, when the crew of a Handley Page Halifax from RAF Riccall in Yorkshire lost control of the heavy bomber when on a night-time navigation exercise. The plane’s trajectory became erratic on the western edge of Eryri and it started to break up as the crew tried to make corrections. But the Halifax flew into rugged Gallt-y-Celyn south of Pentrefoelas and all seven airmen died.

■Delivering the aircraft all the way from the USA to RAF Watton in Norfolk, a USAAF B-24 Liberator was on the last leg of the journey when it set off from RAF Valley on the afternoon of January 7th, but it had barely reached the Welsh mainland when it bit the dust. In cloudy conditions it hit the top of Clip yr Orsedd on the southern edge of the mighty granite quarries at Penmaenmawr then clattered onwards until coming to a stop on the flat summit of Moelfre. Six of the eleven men on board survived; but the other five, plus Booster the crew’s terrier mascot, died. Quarrying for road stone and railway ballast at Penmaenmawr commenced in the 1830s and continued until 2008, destroying neolithic cairns, iron age hillforts and entire biospheres in the process before leaving an incredible scene of utter devastation and wanton destruction. No attempt has been made to restore the area and the quarry is by no means closed, just ‘mothballed’ until some corporate thugs decide it’s time to exploit Wales’ natural resources again.

■A USAAF Republic Thunderbolt fighter plane, based at RAF Andover in Hampshire, was on an unknown mission over Wales when its solo pilot was killed after flying into the vertical escarpment of Moel Bentyrch in Montgomeryshire.

■On January 22nd a Halifax from RAF St David’s (opened in 1943) was returning to base at night as the weather deteriorated when a propellor sheared off approaching the runway. The aircraft lost power and undershot the runway, catching fire as it crashed. Of the crew of eight, one man died, two were seriously injured and the remaining five got out unscathed.

■The next day a Halifax from RAF Faldingworth in Lincolnshire, on a cross-country navigation exercise in typically bad January weather, was stricken by engine failure over Montgomeryshire. The Halifax began to break up in mid-air and fell to ground near Cwm Farm (still existing) in the gentle, wooded valley of Nant Rhyd-ros-lan, one of the multitude of tributaries of the Afon Hafren (River Severn). All nine crew were killed.

■A Beaufighter from RAF Lossiemouth in Moray, stopping over at RAF Hawarden en route for RAF Filton, collided with a Mustang also landing at the airfield but on the incorrect runway. The solo pilot of the Mustang died, as did the pilot of the Beaufighter – however, his three colleagues escaped with injuries.

■The pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Rednal, returning to base after practice on the Prestatyn firing range, seemed to lose control of the tricky plane in cloud over the Afon Clwyd valley. He died instantly as it nosedived full pelt into a field near Gellifor, three miles north of Rhuthun.

■A Wellington from RAF Bramcote in Warwickshire was seen to explode in the sky over the Clwydian hills and the three men on board all died when it came down near the ancient burial grounds atop Moel Fodiau.

■Unauthorised low flying was the verdict of the inquiry into the next fatal accident. The solo pilot of an Airspeed Oxford from RAF Wrexham effectively killed himself when shooting up a narrow valley of the Afon Eglywseg just 400 feet off the ground between the surrounding mountains five miles north of Llangollen. The wings struck trees and the Oxford smashed into Pen Draw’r Byd.

■Chaos hit RAF Talbenny when a Wellington, returning to base having dropped off personnel at RAF Llandow, attempted to land with just one engine after the other engine had to be switched off when it developed serious issues. It was a big ask, and the pilot couldn’t manage it. The plane overshot the runway, hit Talbenny’s armoury building and ignited. Three of the four on board died.

■To end the month, a Miles Martinet from RAF Stormy Down crashed in bad visibility into the west side of imposing Mynydd Emroch above Port Talbot. The solo pilot died.

■The Grumman Avenger was a highly effective American torpedo bomber that was taken up by the FAA for use on Aircraft Carriers and also from RNAS bases, whose role had been expanded. On February 3rd an Avenger was being flown from Navy base at Gosport in Hampshire to RNAS Machrihanish on the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland. While crossing the Berwyn Range near Llangynog in Montgomeryshire, the pilot chose to descend below a snow storm and the aircraft promptly flew into the top of Cerrig Trwsgl. It exploded, killing the three men on board and leaving a deep crater and piles of shattered wreckage. The moorland site was turned into a massive conifer plantation by the UK’s Forestry Commission in the 1980s and today the dark, lifeless source of cheap timber has engulfed the crash site. Deep in the forest can be seen the illogical, morbid and preferential approach to military crashes in all its performative folly: the crater, now filled with water, has been encircled by carefully arranged mounds of debris for no discernible reason – especially as individual graves as well as various official memorials and websites more than adequately honour military personnel who die in wars. What do junkyards of rusting rubbish add? Just try to conceive of this happening where every passenger plane crashed and killed innocents, often in their hundreds, or where every bomb exploded in cities or where every car crash occurred and so on. Should the planet be plastered with random litter for their sake too? Or are these deaths less important?

■The pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Rednal died when his oxygen supply failed and he was rendered unconscious. The plane fell to earth and crashed into fields at Bryn Farm (no longer operating) above the valley of the River Rhiw, three miles from Aberriw (Berriew).

■An Airspeed Oxford from RAF Carew Cheriton was observed by local people spinning out of control and impacting the ground near Barre Farm (still extant) a few miles east of Arberth (Narberth) in Pembrokeshire. All three on board died. The cause of the crash could not be ascertained.

■In decent weather and visibility, a Mosquito on a test run from RAF Benson in Oxfordshire flew into the towering cliffs of Aran Fawddwy in eastern Eryri on February 9th. The two airmen both died. Again, the cause of the crash eluded the AAIB.

■The solo pilot of a USAAF Lockheed Lightning from RAF Heston flew into the steep flanks of Llechwedd Llwyd above the idyllic valley of the Afon Eirth north of Llangynog. He did not live to explain how and why this happened.

■A high-speed stall did for a Mosquito and its two occupants from RAF High Ercall. The plane, on firing practice, went into a severe spin, crashed into the sea off Rhyl and exploded on impact. The burning fuel set the sea on fire.

■Nobody survived when an Anson from RAF Mona with five airmen on board crashed near Marl Farm (long gone) at Llandudno Junction after part of a wing broke off. The crash site was covered by a new section of the A470 (Wales’ only north-south main road) between Llandudno and Llansanffraid Glan Conwy in the 1980s.

■On February 20th an Oxford from RAF Wrexham on night training flew into the side of Moel y Gamelin, part of the jigsaw of interlocking peaks that form Mynydd Llantysilio and Mynydd Maesyrychen north of Llangollen. The two men on board were killed. Shocking quantities of wreckage fragments are plastered all over Moel y Gamelin and around the ancient fortress of Moel Gaer. This is no ‘tribute’; it’s a hostile imposition of twisted values.

■On the same day, an Anson from RAF Cark in Cumberland on navigation training flew into the soaring buttresses of Pen Llithrig y Wrath above the Llyn Cowlyd Reservoir (the lake, built in the 1890s to supply water to Conwy and Colwyn Bay, is the deepest in Eryri). The pilot died but the other three men on board survived.

■A Beaufighter from RAF Crosby-on-Eden in Cumberland, bedevilled by transmitter and navigation problems, tried to make a night landing at RAF Valley but the engine seemed to conk out. The plane disappeared beyond the control tower and flew straight into Trewan dunes, killing both men on board.

■RAF Brawdy in Pembrokeshire (opened 1944) didn’t take long to have its first major incident. On February 24th a Halifax took off in perfect weather for manoeuvres practice, but the pilot seriously overdid it, failing to appreciate the aircraft’s safe limits. He was not warned by the rest of the crew and structural failure ensued. The tail unit broke off in mid-air, the Halifax plunged out of control into fields a couple of miles east of Brawdy at Newton Cross, and all eight occupants died.

■The month ended on February 29th with another violent crash. A Halifax from RAF Tholthorpe in Yorkshire on a training flight suffered catastrophic failure of its elevator control rods and dropped 20,000 feet like a stone, thumping into the earth at Hafod Farm (still operating) near Cross Inn in the sublime countryside of Ceredigion. There were five fatalities, but amazingly two men survived.

■On March 3rd a Blackburn Botha from RAF Hooton Park ditched into the sea near Ynysoedd y Moelrhoniaid (The Skerries) a group of rocky islands off the north-west coast of Ynys Môn. The plane’s vital aileron controls had conked out. Two of the four occupants died.

■A Halifax from RAF St David’s set off from base on a U-Boat hunt but had hardly reached the coast when it caught fire. The aircraft plunged into rough seas off Penmaen Dewi and the crew of seven all died.

■With D-Day preparations paramount, accidents were more likely than ever, and it was a fatal blunder that caused the demise of a Miles Martinet from RAF Stormy Down and its two airmen on March 27th. The plane suddenly nose-dived into the sea off Porthcawl for no apparent reason. When divers were sent down to examine the wreck, the mystery was solved: a large shell-hole in the fuselage revealed that it had been downed by ‘friendly fire’ from one of the many army units on ballistics training in the area.

■A USAAF Liberator, flying from Morocco to RAF St Mawgan to collect equipment, was diverted to RAF Fairwood Common as Cornwall was fog-bound. The crew soon discovered that Gŵyr was fog-bound too but, with the plane running out of fuel, there was no option but to attempt a blind emergency-landing. The heavy-duty bomber overshot the runway at Fairwood Common and kept on trundling until stopped by a hut and a hedge. Five of the six-man crew survived, but one man hadn’t fastened his safety belt and was propelled through the windscreen. He died three days later.

 ■The USAAF Thunderbolt would prove to be a formidable fighter plane in the later stages of the War, but no aircraft was invulnerable. On April 5th the pilot of a Thunderbolt from RAF Atcham was practicing aerobatics over Wales when he lost control and was killed when the aircraft crashed into Mynydd Copog near Dinas Mawddwy in eastern Eryri.

■The trainee pilot of a Miles Master from RAF Tern Hill was being put through aerial manoeuvres in cloudy conditions with an instructor sitting next to him when the plane crashed into the enchanting valley of the River Teme near Bugeildy in Radnorshire and both men were killed instantly. The investigation could not explain why the instructor didn’t do his job and take over the controls.

■Engine failure disabled a Halifax from RAF Riccal as it approached RAF Fairwood Common in the middle of the night. The plane came in far too low, missed the runway and ran into the adjacent local quarters of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Although the crew of eight all survived, 16 WAAFs were injured and one died of her wounds.

■None of the eight men aboard a Lancaster survived after the bulky bomber broke up in mid-air, rained down on fields and caught fire near Cefngast Farm (still operating) a couple of miles east of Llanwrtyd in the Afon Irfon valley. The Farm borders the 30,000 acres of Mynydd Epynt in Breconshire, requisitioned by the British State as a war-time training ground in 1939 as a ‘temporary’ measure. 85 years later, now called the Sennybridge Training Area, this outrageous no-go-zone remains. Thriving, long-established Welsh-speaking communities were cruelly destroyed so that the British Army can play redundant war games and rehearse waging illegal wars.

■On April 25th an Avro Anson from RAF Millom in Cumberland flew well off course while on a night navigation exercise and ended up amid the dangerous heights of northern Eryri. The inevitable happened: the Anson flew into the wild moorlands of Drum and all five on board were killed. The crash site is still a visible eyesore, sprinkled with meaningless scrap metal.

■A B-24 Liberator from RAF St Eval was conducting exercises with a submarine in Cardigan Bay when, for reasons never found out, it slowly descended into deep sea some nine miles north of Fishguard (Abergwaun). The ten men on board all drowned. Two corpses were recovered by the submarine, the rest sank to a watery grave.

■Next to go wrong was a Wellington from RAF Westcott on April 28th. On a night navigation exercise, one of the plane’s two engines failed due to overheating. Struggling to stay aloft, the plane was redirected to RAF Haverfordwest, but the landing could not be accomplished successfully. The big bomber bounced along the runway, overshot, dropped into the narrow gorge of Poyston Water and burst into flames. Four of the six occupants were killed.

■The foremost USAAF fighter-bomber was the Republic Thunderbolt, however on May 4th a Thunderbolt from RAF Atcham was defeated by the Welsh mountains and the Welsh weather. The solo pilot was practising aerobatics and rolls but in the mist allowed the plane to stray too far into high ground and Mynydd Copog claimed another victim. Today significant chunks of hideous wreckage combine with alien conifer plantations to utterly disfigure the landscape.

■Two Spitfires, on a formation flying exercise from RAF Rednal, came into contact over Flintshire. One of them safely returned to base, but the other plunged into the escarpment of The Graig overlooking the Afon Dyfrdwy at Bangor-is-y-Coed and the pilot died.

■May 8th was a bad day for the gunnery school at RAF Rhoose. Three Ansons and a Martinet were practicing formation flying over the Severn coast when two of the Ansons collided off Porthcawl, descended into the sea, shattered and sank. All eight airmen died, four from each aircraft.

■The pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Rednal died when he lost consciousness at high altitude during aerobatics practice and the plane wheeled into the ground near Bradley in Denbighshire.

■A Wellington from RAF Wing in Buckinghamshire was night flying through cloud over Wales when every airman’s nightmare happened: it stalled. The six men on board all died as it clattered into the picturesque Nant-y-Glyn valley north of Llanrwst.

■On May 19th a Spitfire from RAF Rednal was practising at the Prestatyn Gunnery Range when it stalled and slam-dunked into the sea, killing the pilot. The Gunnery Range, which stretched for nearly 20 miles along what had been a lovely sandy coastline between Talacre and Abergele, has long gone – only to be replaced by something even worse: mile after mile of endless, sprawling caravan sites and holiday parks.

■Flying at night from RAF Rufforth in Yorkshire, a Halifax caught fire high in the sky over Pembrokeshire. Three of the crew of seven bailed out as the pilot tried to pull off a landing at RAF Haverfordwest, but the other four all died when that proved impossible and the aircraft crash landed at Fenton Farm (now holiday cottages) near Broad Haven.

■Two Beaufighters from RAF Fairwood Common were undertaking machine-gun training in good weather on May 28th when the crew of one ineptly misfired at the other. The damaged aircraft managed to land at Kilvrough Farm (still active) on Gŵyr and the pilot and navigator, both badly injured, scrambled clear before it ignited, but the navigator later died from his injuries.

■With D-day imminent, a USAAF Thunderbolt from RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire was practising manoeuvres over Wales on June 4th when cloud disorientated the solo pilot and he flew the plane into the billowing Carmarthenshire hills near Cynghordy. The Thunderbolt flopped into the wide Afon Bran valley, not far from the Central Wales Railway (today’s Heart of Wales line), and the pilot was killed.

■The invasion of Normandy was underway and inevitably there were umpteen fatal incidents in the airborne operations over France and southern England. And in Wales, now mainly figuring in Atlantic surveillance, U-boat confrontations and training exercises, mishaps were still frequent. On June 8th an Anson from RAF Llandwrog was practicing night navigation when it came up against Mynydd Perfedd in Eryri. In the devastating impact all five occupants died. The wreckage mingled with that of another Anson that had crashed almost in the same spot eight months earlier in 1943 (see above).

■On June 13th an RAF Penrhos Anson on a night navigation exercise flew into the treacherous north face of mighty Moel Hebog near Beddgelert – the navigator had calculated that the plane was over Hawarden, 80 miles to the east! Four of the crew of five died.

■On the same day a Wellington from RAF Westcott was hunting for U-boats over Cardigan Bay when its engine failed catastrophically. The aircraft disintegrated as it hit deep, turbulent water and all seven men on board died.

■Into July, an Anson from RAF Mona on night training struck the 3,000 ft high summit of Foel Fras three miles east of Bethesda, killing one man and injuring the other four. Luckily for them the aircraft didn’t catch fire and it was high summer meaning death from exposure was less likely. The mountain rescue team from RAF Llandwrog located the crash site within five hours and guided the four survivors to safety. Insultingly, the aircraft’s undercarriage and a long piece of wing still lie rusting on the mountain.

■On July 14th a Halifax from RAF Lissett in Yorkshire caught fire in mid-air near the Pembrokeshire coast. The Captain ordered the crew to bail out while he remained at the controls aiming for RAF St David’s but he couldn’t make it, jumped out too late and drowned. Of the other six men on board, four made safe parachute landings and two did not. Their bodies were found weeks later washed up on beaches over 100 miles away at Llŷn and Ynys Môn – a testament to the power of Irish Sea currents. The Halifax itself fell burning into the sea at Jack Sound between Skomer and the mainland.

■On an unknown mission, a USAAF Thunderbolt from RAF Atcham inexplicably crashed into fields near Dolau in the gorgeous Radnorshire countryside on July 28th, killing the solo pilot.

■Into August, a Wellington from RAF Angle was undertaking sophisticated radar trials in the western approaches when somehow a flare ignited in the bomb bay, triggering a fierce fire. The burning plane immediately crashed into St Brides Bay and the crew of five were all killed.

■Flying back to RAF Pengam Moors in a Miles Martinet after a navigational exercise, the solo Welsh pilot made the mistake of indulging in a show of aerobatics above Clydach in the Afon Tawe valley, where his parents lived. He was only 22 but nevertheless should have known better. Poor visibility suddenly shrouded the plane, it collided with Mynydd Drumau and he was killed.

■A Wellington from RAF Peplow in Shropshire was practising simulated bomb runs over the Irish Sea on the night of August 23rd when its starboard engine completely cut out. Trying to get to RAF Aberporth, unaware that it was a daytime-only airfield, the crew struggled in vain to find it while the Wellington remorselessly lost height. Then the plane struck trees on the banks of the Afon Teifi at Cenarth and hammered into the river bank, causing a wing to break off and the fuel tanks to explode at Cenarth Falls. Two of the crew of six got out through holes in the fuselage, but the other four all died. Today a tacky caravan and camping park blights the scenic waterfalls and the nearby National Coracle Centre.

■On August 24th a US Navy Liberator based at RAF Dunkeswell in Devon was on a routine navigation exercise, but the cloud base dropped as the plane wandered off course into the western realms of Bannau Brycheiniog. In pitch dark, the crew misinterpreted the position of the horizon and the altitude of the mountains and flew straight into the dark leviathan called Moel Feity on the northern edge of Y Mynydd Du. All six on board were killed instantly.

■A Martinet from RAF Aberporth, on a targeting exercise in perfect weather conditions, went into a severe spin following engine failure. The solo pilot bailed out but his parachute got tangled in the propellor blades and he went down with the plane at Flimston in southern Pembrokeshire. Flimston is in the Castlemartin Training Area, at 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares) the largest single Defence Training Area (DTA) in the UK. Taken over by the British Army in 1938, it was closed after WW2 but then re-opened in 1951. Since then it has become the only DTA that fires live rounds into both the land and the sea. Situated in what is supposed to be a National Park, it operates for 44 weeks a year, when its exclusion zone stretches 12 nautical miles out to sea, and its lethal weaponry has killed many soldiers over the years. This completely unacceptable militarised and prohibited area imposed without debate on a large chunk of Wales also has satellite ranges nearby at Manorbier, Penally and Templeton. When, I ask rhetorically, will the people of Wales put an end to being treated like a cringing, worthless colonial possession where imperialist warmongers can test their mass-murder technologies?

■August ended with a Halifax from RAF Dishforth getting into serious trouble over Llŷn. At high altitude the engine ignited and the fire quickly became out of control. The order was given to abandon the aircraft and all eight men parachuted out. Six made the jump successfully but two died from the impact of landing on rock-hard terrain at Dolbenmaen as the burning aircraft crashed into nearby Bryniau Ystumcedig.

 ■On September 3rd a Halifax from RAF Lindholme in Yorkshire, trying to get to RAF Valley, flew into the spectacular conical peaks of Yr Eifl in northern Llŷn and the crew of six were all killed.

■The solo USAAF pilot of a Thunderbolt from RAF Atcham died when he lost his way and the aircraft collided with the cairns and ridges of Aran Fawddwy, the highest point of southern Eryri. It was here, according to Arthurian legend, that King Arthur fought and won a battle with the giant Rhita Gawr, flinging him down the sheer screes into the cold waters of Creiglyn Dyfi.

■Carrying nine men, a Liberator from RAF St Eval was on coastal patrol duty when navigation went awry in a bank of cloud and the aircraft crashed into the south-facing slopes of Carn Bica in the Preselis. Six of the crew died.

■A Mosquito on night training from RAF High Ercall had an involuntary rendezvous with the stark moorlands of Drum in the Carneddau Range and both airmen on board were killed in the impact. It goes without saying that substantial parts of the Mosquito are still strewn all over Drum. How odd that those who insist on ‘remembrance’ through fetishized bits of metal never mention the single most important thing to be remembered from WW2: that the far-right must always be fought and crushed, never appeased or accepted. Lest we forget, this has been conveniently forgotten.

■Into October, a Mosquito on a training flight from RAF Wyton in Huntingdonshire encountered thick cloud over Caernarfon Bay. The pilot lost control of the plane and it nose-dived into the sea, killing both men on board.

■On October 27th a Defiant on a long ferrying flight from RAF Hullavington in Wiltshire to RNAS Donibristle in Fife was descending towards RAF Hawarden for refuelling when it crashed short of the runway, killing the solo pilot.

■A Halifax from RAF Wombleton in Yorkshire iced up at night and had to be abandoned over Llandudno Junction. The aircraft hit ground at Bryn Pydew and broke up while six of the crew of seven parachuted to safety, but one slipped through his harness and died near Bodysgallen Farm (now a hotel) in the fall.

■At the start of November the pilot of a Mosquito on a training flight from RAF Cranfield in Bedfordshire made a basic navigational error in Eryri by turning east prematurely. The plane flew into the obdurate precipices of Craig Cwmbychan above the Afon Gwyrfai valley and both men on board died.

■The Supermarine Seafire was a naval version of the Spitfire adapted for operation from aircraft carriers. On November 3rd two FAA Seafires from RNAS Dale were undertaking formation flying and aerobatics exercises above Haverfordwest when one failed to come out of a roll. At high speed it drilled into ground adjacent to Fishguard Road north of the town and the solo pilot was killed instantly.

■A USAAF Douglas Dakota, en route from Le Bourget airfield in Paris to RAF Burtonwood, was diverted to RAF Valley because of bad weather but met equally bad weather over Eryri. It flew into the granite cliffs of Craig y Dulyn and from the steep heights fell far below into the black depths of Llyn Dulyn (a natural lake made into a reservoir for Llandudno in 1881). The crew of four all died. It wasn’t until November 22nd, 11 days after the plane went missing, that the wreck was located.

■A Spitfire from RAF Fairwood Common was conducting firing practice when it was seen to go into a slow roll at far too low an altitude. One of the aircraft’s wings touched water, it crashed into the sea off Port Talbot and the pilot died.

■On November 20th, a Wellington from RAF Wellesbourne Mountford in Warwickshire was on night-time cross-country navigation training when an engine started to ice up amid the western mountains of Bannau Brycheiniog. Permission to descend below cloud was granted, but that resulted in the aircraft hitting the jagged ridges of Carreg Goch at the head of the Afon Giedd valley, killing all six on board. The crash site has become notorious for the huge quantities of wreckage that still besmirch the remote area to this day. The time is long overdue for Powys County Council to take the initiative and clear the shocking mess.

■Next, the pilot of a Whitley from RAF Sleap in Shropshire became hopelessly lost at night and flew into the rising moorlands of Pen-y-gwely on the eastern edge of the Berwyn Range. All five occupants were injured in the impact. Four recovered, but one later died.

■As is clear from this catalogue of fatal crashes, the main danger wasn’t the Luftwaffe at all but the inexperience, over-confidence and high error rates of youthful airmen and the structural weaknesses of their flying machines. Yet another instance of self-inflicted damage came on November 25th when a Bristol Beaufort from RNAS Dale overshot the runway when landing back at base. The pilot turned to have another attempt, but lost height and died when the plane crashed into sea cliffs a mile away at Kete.

■Seven airmen were on board a Lancaster from RAF Witchford in Cambridgeshire when, for unknown reasons, it dived into the sea near St Athan on a training exercise and all were either killed in the impact or drowned.

■With the War in continental Europe quickly coming to a sequence of do-or-die final showdowns, Wales was far from the front line. RAF stations here now functioned as training grounds for airborne operations, bombing, strategic targeting and aerial skills. Accidents could, of course, still occur. On December 8th two Spitfires from RAF Fairwood Common inadvertently collided during firing practice over Cynffig Burrows (now a nature reserve) on the Glamorgan coast. One came down into the Severn and the pilot died, while the other plane hit the dunes and the pilot survived.

■Two Lancaster bombers from RAF Fulbeck in Lincolnshire, on a night-time cross-country and high-altitude bombing exercise, encountered thick cloud and lost sight of each other over Wales. One of the aircraft, icing up badly at over 30,000 feet, changed course and descended safely allowing it to return to its base in England. But the other was never seen or heard from again and all seven occupants were declared dead. It is thought it came down into the Irish Sea near Y Gogarth (the Great Orme).

■On December 12th, two Halifax bombers from RAF Dishforth were on a formation-flying exercise across Wales to the Irish Sea and back when the lead plane suddenly plunged downwards through cloud over Radnorshire. It bludgeoned into the summit of Pen-y-Bwlch a couple of miles west of Rhaeadr Gwy (Rhayader) and shattered, killing all eight occupants. The hilltop is still horribly scarred and littered with wreckage.

■The two-man crew of an Anson from RAF Carew Cheriton on an equipment test died after they entered terrible weather over the Preselis, lost orientation and hit the sheer ridge between Foel Cwmcerwyn and Foel Feddau above Glynsaithmaen Farm – one of the meeting places of the 19th century Rebecca Rioters, named after the seven prehistoric standing stones located in its fields (six are still visible and the Farm is still operating).

■A bad accident occurred on December 22nd. A USAAF Liberator from RAF Harrington in Northamptonshire on a communications-jamming flight was diverted to RAF Valley after getting lost in fog. But then two of its four engines failed and the ten occupants were instructed to abandon the aircraft near Caergybi (Holyhead). The plane ditched into the sea off North Stack lighthouse but only two of the crew made a safe landing. The bodies of the other eight were never recovered.

1945
■The two-man Polish crew of a Mosquito from RAF Church Fenton in Yorkshire died during a night navigation exercise on January 5th when, lost in cloud over the Irish Sea, their plane crashed into the water 10 miles south-west of RAF Valley.

■Returning to RAF Pembrey after gunnery training, the pilot of a Wellington got the landing speed wrong so climbed upwards and recircled to attempt the landing again. But the flaps lifted too suddenly and the aircraft plunged into a steep nose-dive and ploughed into the marshes at the mouth of the Gwendraeth estuary, killing six of the seven on board. Today Gwendraeth is an out-of-bounds no-go-zone reserved for bombing and strafing practice that forces the Wales Coast Path to make a 10-mile inland diversion away from the coast.

■The two airmen aboard a Percival Proctor from RAF Madley were conducting wireless telegraphy training in fine weather when they entered banks of thick cloud over Wales. The pilot descended to get a location fix, but a wing struck rocks and the Proctor violently thumped into the domineering heights of Corn Du in Bannau Brycheiniog. With light fading, the injured trainee set off to get help for the unconscious but still alive pilot. He managed to scramble down steep slopes towards the lights of the main Merthyr to Brecon road (today’s A470) far below and got help at the Storey Arms (then a youth hostel, since 1971 an outdoor education centre operated by Cardiff Council). Alas it was too late; by the time a rescue team got to the crash site his comrade had died of exposure.

■On January 13th, a Royal Canadian Air Force Airspeed Oxford, flying from RAF Blackbushe in Hampshire to RAF Abbotsinch in Glasgow, was reported missing after all radio communications abruptly ceased. It wasn’t until February 5th that a shepherd watching his flock on Clogwyn Pryfed in Eryri spotted the wreckage near Cornel Farm (now Cornel Scout Centre) above Llyn Crafnant (a reservoir formed to supply water to Llanrwst in 1896). A rescue team from RAF Llandwrog recovered the four corpses.

■The pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Pembrey was practising in the Tenby area when he seems to have been blinded in a snow flurry. He was killed as the plane crashed into a field at New Hedges, a locality now smothered by repulsive caravan parks.

■February started with a USAAF Martin B-26 Marauder, one of 16 making the long journey from the USA to the UK to partake in front line action over Germany, becoming another victim of Eryri’s brooding peaks and fickle weather. In bad visibility the bomber collided with grandiose Y Garn east of Llanberis and plunged down the mountain’s eastern rock wall into the hanging valley of Cwm Cywion. None of the five airmen survived. Some debris remains, but most has been removed.

■On February 3rd a Mosquito from RAF High Ercall was on a training flight when it unaccountably ditched into the sea off Rhiwledyn (Little Orme). A rescue boat was quickly dispatched and found the two airmen in an inflatable dinghy, but one was already dead and the other, severely injured, died soon afterwards.

■During a night navigation exercise, a Lancaster from RAF Lindholme in Yorkshire went missing and was never seen again. Although the crash site cannot be categorically determined, the consensus is that it came down in Cardigan Bay. It was probably caused by a noted weakness in Lancasters whereby their wing tips could fold without warning. Whatever the reason, all seven men on board were classified as ‘missing in action’.

■February 6th was a very bad night for Lancaster bombers. Another one came seriously unstuck in Wales on a navigation exercise – this one based at RAF North Luffenham in Rutland – when it broke up in mid-air (maybe due to ice), and dived out of control at high speed into Foel Ddu, one of the monumental mountains around Cadair Idris. The plane burst into flames so fierce that the glow could be seen seven miles away in Harlech. The crew of seven all died, two being so thoroughly incinerated their bodies were never recovered. Ghastly piles of wreckage remain all over Foel Ddu.

■Testing fuel consumption of a Beaufighter from RAF Pershore, the crew of two died when the plane met atrocious weather over Eryri and crashed into majestic Aran Fawddwy. The wreckage poured down the perpendicular gulleys as far as serene Creiglyn Dyfi lake and nothing has been cleared away for these past 80 years.

■On February 20th a Mosquito from RAF Haverfordwest on a training flight to RAF Llanbedr was crippled by an engine fire approaching the airfield and, out of control, it flopped into the dunes at Morfa Harlech, killing the solo pilot.

■A Miles Martinet from RAF Talbenny rather ineptly collided with a Coastal Command Liberator and crashed into a field just west of the airfield, killing both occupants. The much bigger Liberator was largely unscathed.

■February 28th saw a Hawker Henley from RAF Towyn suffer engine failure returning to base. Maybe the pilot in his desperation tried the old airman’s trick called the ‘blip’, the mechanical equivalent of the digital era’s all-purpose remedy for computer problems: switch it off then switch it on again. If he did, it didn’t work: the Henley crashed into the Afon Dysynni and he was killed.

■On March 5th a Mosquito from RAF Haverfordwest set off on a training flight but had only travelled seven miles north when black smoke was seen pouring from one of its engines. The plane went into a vicious spin and dived into the ground at Little Treffgarne. Both the pilot and his navigator were killed.

■The Hawker Typhoon was a single-seat fighter-bomber intended to be a replacement for the Hurricane. Although it never quite reached those standards, it was nevertheless one of the RAF’s most potent planes as the War in Europe reached its climax. A Typhoon from RAF Aston Down was practising rocket firing over the Severn near Cas-gwent when one of the missiles failed to release after firing, with disastrous consequences. The Typhoon hammered into open country east of Shirenewton (Drenewydd Gelli-farch), killing the pilot and exploding with such force that it left a deep crater that can still be seen today.

■A Liberator B-24 of the USAAF, stationed at RAF North Pickenham in Norfolk, was on a mystery mission over Wales when it flew into Post Gwyn, a westerly outlier of the Berwyn Range above the narrow valley of the Afon Eirth in Montgomeryshire. Four of the crew of nine died in the crash, of which there is thankfully no trace today.

■On April 2nd, a de Havilland Mosquito from RAF Brawdy went missing in stormy weather during a navigation exercise and was never seen again. Eventually the two occupants were declared dead. The consensus was that the plane had ditched into the sea off Pembrokeshire.

■An Anson on a training exercise from RAF Bishops Court was cruising above Wales at an altitude of 8,000 feet when, without warning, the controls malfunctioned and it began a rapid descent, breaking up as it fell. What runs through people’s minds in their last few seconds of life? It’s a question that none of us can answer – until our own death comes calling. The Anson hit the ground near Tyn-y-bont in the beautiful Afon Tryweryn valley north of Bala and the crew of four were all killed. Twenty years later, despite total opposition across Wales, the valley was flooded to form the Llyn Celyn reservoir and supply water to Liverpool, destroying numerous farms and the village of Capel Celyn, a stronghold of Welsh culture. ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ (Remember Tryweryn), Wales’ most famed graffiti, became the slogan that has sparked and sustained the Welsh independence movement ever since.

■Following an afternoon training flight, a Mosquito from RAF Haverfordwest overshot the runway at RAF Brawdy, belly-landed one mile east near Llandeloy and caught fire. The two men on board burnt to death in their seats.

■Another Mosquito from RAF Haverfordwest, along with its two-man crew, came to grief on April 19th. Engine failure 10 miles off the Pembrokeshire coast meant the drowned men were lost forever in the Celtic Sea’s tempestuous waters.

■Just after taking off from RAF Haverfordwest yet another Mosquito failed on April 22nd. Extreme vibration caused the tail to fall off and the plane crashed at Arnolds Down Farm, killing the two airmen. The Farm is long gone, its former fields now incorporated into Haverfordwest Golf Club or plastered with solar panels.

■The sequence of mishaps befalling RAF Haverfordwest continued when a Spitfire on a routine training flight crashed near the Corner Piece Inn (still pulling pints) at Rudbaxton, killing the solo pilot. Close by, on the other side of the main road (the A40), was the short-lived RAF Rudbaxton airfield.

■For unknown reasons, a Spitfire from RAF Pembrey was devoured by the nearby Gwendraeth marshes on April 25th, killing the pilot.

■Hitler had shot himself in the head in his bunker, Russian and American troops surrounded Berlin, the War in Europe was in its last few days. Yet on May 5th there was still time for more unnecessary aerial deaths far away in Wales. Once more the incident involved a Mosquito from RAF Haverfordwest indulging in a superfluous training exercise. Observers on the ground saw the plane go into a violent roll and spiral into fields at Llwyndewi (still a thriving dairy farm) close to the A40 east of Whitland (Hendy-gwyn). In the resulting fire the crew of two died.

■On the same day a Mustang from RAF Rednal, flying blind on incorrect altitude readings, smacked into cloud-covered Mynydd Rhiwabon and the solo pilot was killed.

■On May 8th Germany surrendered and victory in Europe was secured. After six long years, an immense global effort had triumphed over Fascism. Nobody could possibly have imagined that, 80 years later, the far-right would again be rampant across the planet, recalibrated for the 21st century. Powered by immense wealth, enabled by high-tech American corporations, built on incredible inequality, reliant on the insane destruction of the planet’s biosphere, propped up by relentless brainwashing propaganda, and passively endorsed by countless hyper-individualised, self-obsessed, ignorant, venal humans addicted to pointless, puerile consumption, today’s reality means that the 85 million who died in WW2 actually died for nothing. There can be no greater indictment of the Trumps, Putins, Netanyahus, Starmers and all the criminals who currently rule the world.

■Crashes kept on happening as a period of systematic US withdrawal, mass demobilisation and transition to peace got underway. On May 10th, a FAA Bristol Beaufort from RNAS Dale ditched into Milford Haven Waterway near Stack Rock. One of the two-man crew drowned, the other was rescued.

■On May 16th a Royal Australian Air Force Short Sunderland flying boat was leaving RAF Pembroke Dock for a test flight when it suddenly swung sharply to port and nose-dived into the water, coming to rest semi-submerged in shallow sea. There were four men on board: the pilot, flight engineer and flight rigger were all seriously injured but survived; the flight fitter died.

■The solo pilot of a USAAF Mustang from RAF Debden in Essex was deemed to have been killed by anoxia – a complete lack of oxygen. While flying in formation with other Mustangs, his plane abruptly dropped from the skies and hit the slopes of Pared yr Ychain above the sublime Afon Tycerig valley in Eryri.

■On June 8th, a new record for Wales’ worst ever plane crash was set. Setting off from RAF Polebrook, a Boeing Flying Fortress was heading home to the USA with a crew of 10 plus 10 other servicemen on board. The gargantuan bomber had almost completed the most perilous part of the journey across the mountains of Eryri and was approaching a stop-over at RAF Valley before the last leg across the Atlantic. But then a misinterpretation of course instructions saw the plane turn into Eryri again. The error was quickly corrected and the plane turned once more to head back out to sea, but it was too late. The unstoppable force struck an immovable object, the unforgiving summit of Craig Cwm Llwyd just a mile from the coast, then raked across the crags and gulleys and ignited before coming to a halt. All 20 died.

■A Percival Proctor was undone by silly blunders when taking off from RAF St Athan on June 18th. Both the pilot and the co-pilot didn’t secure their harnesses properly, causing one of the harness release devices to interfere with the plane’s control column as it ascended. Imagine their panic and horror as the jammed joystick prevented any lateral movement, rendering the Proctor unflyable. Both men were killed when it crashed back onto the runway.

■A USAAF Mustang from RAF Martlesham Heath in Suffolk was destroyed and it solo pilot killed at the RAF Valley airfield following a clumsy descent on June 20th.

■The War in Europe had ended but the War in the Far East continued, involving a major redeployment of aircraft and airmen. One such change was the disbanding of the flying boat squadrons at RAF Pembroke Dock and the retraining of their crews to fly B-24 Liberators, big four-engine transporter planes, initially at RAF St David’s. On July 8th, a Liberator took off from the airfield to practise night-time circuits and landings but almost immediately one of the engines failed. The plane, full of fuel, ripped through hedgerows and barrelled into hayricks and barns at Emlych Farm just north of St David’s (Tyddewi), igniting everything in its path. The crew of four all died, livestock was burnt to death and only luck prevented the fuel tank, which actually landed on the Farmhouse roof, from exploding and killing the Rees family inside. Emlych Farm, largely rebuilt, still operates today.

■From the declaration of War in September 1939, August 1945 was the first month without fatal air crashes in Wales since December 1939. Elsewhere, the six-years of industrial-scale slaughter now reached its appalling denouement when, on August 6th and August 9th, the USA dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 250,000 people.

■On September 2nd Japan’s unconditional surrender marked the formal ending of WW2, but of course residual accidents continued to occur for a while. Just three days later a Beaufort from RNAS Dale caught fire shortly after take off and splashed into the sea off St Govan’s Head, killing the solo pilot. Before the end of the year the Bristol Beaufort would become one of the many war planes declared obsolete.

■The solo pilot of a USAAF Lockheed Lightning from RAF Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, still required to do training flights until he was demobbed, was deceived by cloud cover and a faulty altimeter on September 11th. The plane glanced off the top of the great massif of Pumlumon in Ceredigion, one of Wales’ most fabled mountains, and he died in the crash.

■An Airspeed Oxford from RAF Brawdy, on a night-time radar meteorology research flight, flew too low over Cardigan Bay, struck the water and descended into the brine 30 miles west of Aberystwyth. The bodies of the three airmen were never found.

■On November 8th a Mosquito from RAF Hawarden took off on a test flight but was forced to immediately return to base after an engine failed. Having to act quickly, the solo pilot fumbled at the controls and misjudged the raising of flaps. He died as the plane crashed east of the airfield at Bretton Farm (now ‘serviced offices’).

So concludes the WW2 section. In the aftermath, many military airfields would close down and the RAF scrapped thousands of aircraft it no longer needed and the maintenance units that had repaired them. The era of civil flying clubs dawned along with the rapid expansion of commercial passenger flights. The article will now revert to its pre-WW2 pattern of, where possible, identifying the people involved.

1946
■Default militarism took time to fade into the past. On January 7th an Airspeed Oxford from RAF Wheaton Aston in Staffordshire was engaged in night-time ‘beam approach’ training when the crew of three allowed it to stray off course in snowy weather and disregarded instructions not to descend below 2,500 feet. The Oxford hit the top of Penybegwn (Hay Bluff) near Offa’s Dyke on the Welsh side of the border with England and caught fire on impact. Wireless operator Gordon Robinson was killed but the pilot Ernest Monk and instructor Arthur Hopewell managed to get out of the wreckage in time.

■On January 18th a Wellington from RAF Silverstone in Northamptonshire, on cross-country navigation training, was stymied by a sequence of mishaps over Y Berwyn in Denbighshire. First, the ‘pitot’ (instruments that determine an aircraft’s air speed) froze. As a result the pilot unknowingly let the speed decline dangerously. This in turn caused the plane to stall and, in response, the pilot attempted to regain velocity by going into a dive. But the Wellington couldn’t take the stress, it’s frame disintegrated and it fell to earth at Melin y Glyn, an old watermill on the banks of the Afon Llynor north of Llandrillo. All five men on board died: pilot Norman Brunning, navigators Geoffrey Button and William Kinnair, wireless operator Terence Crabb and rear gunner Alfred Butler.

■As the RAF reduced in size, many of its experienced airmen became part-time auxiliaries, keeping their eye in with practice flights when they had time off from their full-time jobs. Anthony Eyre of Croydon was a typical example. During the War he had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, had risen up the RAF ranks to become a Wing Commander and had spent over three years as a German prisoner of war. Post-War he returned to his day job as a clerk at the National Provincial Bank’s Piccadilly branch in London and indulged his love of flying whenever he could. On February 16th he was flying a Hawker Tempest from RAF Fairwood Common when the plane developed engine trouble over the Vale of Glamorgan. He attempted an emergency landing at RAF St Athan but the engine then cut out completely. There was nothing the 27-year-old could do to prevent the Tempest thwacking a tree at Llancatal a mile east of the airfield and he died instantly.

■The RAF still had plenty of operating Spitfires. On March 21st one had just taken off from RAF Fairwood Common in good weather when it came into contact with overhead electric wires and nosedived into fields at Llandeilo Ferwallt (Bishopston) south of the airfield. The experienced solo pilot, James Abbott of West Bridgford in Nottinghamshire, died from multiple injuries.

■Fatal air accidents had rapidly become a rarity, mainly due to the huge decrease in actual flights along with a serious concentration on safety, big advances in aircraft design and technology and a new professionalism within the RAF – all improvements that the perpetual emergency of wartime had not allowed. The first incident in Wales for six months happened to a De Havilland Hornet, an upgraded replacement of the versatile but rather perilous Mosquito, from RAF Fairwood Common. In poor visibility the pilot, Peter Bond from Norfolk, was killed when the Hornet flew at high velocity into the cairn-speckled Mynydd-y-glog east of Penderyn in Breconshire.

■The sixth and last fatal crash of the year involved one of the old Mosquitos still in use. On December 16th it departed RNAS Dale on a test flight but the port engine caught fire and the plane crashed into St Bride’s Bay off the north Pembrokeshire coast, killing the solo pilot Robert Oliver, one of the increasing number of part-time volunteers utilised by both the RAF and the FAA.

1947
■RAF Brawdy, transferred to the Navy in 1946, was now RNAS Brawdy. In June, a Mosquito was taking the very short flight to Brawdy from Kete, an outstation of RNAS Dale, when the solo pilot executed a roll incorrectly and dived into marshy ground just north of the Brawdy runway. Hamish Muir Mackenzie, a senior FAA commander, died in the ambulance on the way to hospital in Haverfordwest.

■In July, engine failure caused a De Havilland Vampire to crash into sand dunes while taking off from RAF Pembrey. The plane flipped over and was destroyed by fire, killing 23-year-old pilot Geoffrey Robinson from Leeds.

■Private ownership of redundant RAF aircraft was becoming more common. An old Handley Page Halifax was sold in 1946 to the Lancaster Aircraft Corporation (LAC), a speculative enterprise based in Blackpool. Named Air Adventurer, it was mainly used to carry freight. Disaster struck on December 5th. Flying from Lille in France to deliver cargo to Speke Airport in Liverpool, it wandered off course as the crew disregarded various air traffic control instructions and foolishly attempted to avoid cloud by flying beneath it. The result was violent impact with the summit of Mynydd y Cwm in the Clwydian Range near Llanelwy (St Asaph) and the death of all the four-man crew: John Parsonage (the pilot, strongly criticised in the subsequent investigation), John Driver, Allan Brook and John Evans. LAC would develop into a major charter airline, a pioneer of budget flying and air tourism, before being wound up in 1957.

1948
■The Gloster Meteor was the RAF’s first jet-powered fighter. A Meteor that had been delivered to RAF Llandow late in 1947 crashed during take off in March and was destroyed beyond repair. The AAIB concluded that the pilot was to blame: having entered low cloud as the plane ascended, he chose to avoid it by descending rather than climbing through it. The blunder cost 25-year-old pilot William Vasey from South Shields his life.

■Howard Evans, the pilot of a Spitfire from RAF Llandow, was attempting to level off after a dive over the Severn but got the tricky angles wrong and was killed when the plane struck the water near Barry Island.

■At the end of July, two RAF volunteer reserves were ferrying a Mosquito from RAF Horsham St Faith in Norfolk to RAF Aldergrove in County Antrim. The pilot Josiah Campbell was in a hurry to get home to Northern Ireland as his wife had just given birth. Perhaps that explains his slapdash attitude to flying over Eryri in turbulence and thick cloud. The severe weather induced structural failure in the fragile Mosquito, it hit the stony flanks of Cwm Llan, a high valley running southwards from Yr Wyddfa, and both Campbell and passenger Charles Walker died.

1949
■Two Spitfires from RAF Llanbedr were flying in formation while executing a pre-arranged mock attack on a Harvard trainer aircraft over Cardigan Bay when they collided in mid-air. One Spitfire, although severely damaged, managed to get back to base but the other pitched into the sea off Harlech. The plane and pilot Lawrence Cowling were never found.

■Based in Rearsby, Leicestershire, Auster manufactured light observation aircraft from 1938 to 1961. On June 11th an Auster from RAF Middle Wallop in Hampshire crashed near Sennybridge in Bannau Brycheiniog when the pilot failed to maintain sufficient speed and altitude and the plane succumbed to a downdraught. The two crew on board survived but Ronald Ross, a member of the ground crew at Sennybridge, was hit by the Auster and died of his injuries. The airstrip at Sennybridge was a short-lived facility soon incorporated into the huge Sennybridge Training Area, common land originally confiscated by the British Army in 1939 that today encompasses a massive 37,000 acres (14,500 hectares) stolen from Wales.

■A Spitfire from RAF Pembrey was being used for aerobatics training when pilot Arthur Hill became disorientated and lost control. The plane inverted and fell to earth upside down south of Ferryside at the mouth of the Afon Tywi, killing Hill.

■A Miles Martinet from RAF Valley crashed into Cardigan Bay off Abermaw while target training on July 29th. A broken throttle had caused the engine to fail. The pilot survived his dip in the ocean and was rescued, but the target towing operator Colin Sell drowned.

■In August another Martinet, on a test flight from RAF Hawarden, was ‘contour chasing’ (i.e. flying far too low) over Denbighshire when the pilot lost control and the plane crashed near the hamlet Y Ddwyryd (anglicised insultingly to Druid) in the evocative Afon Alwen valley west of Corwen. Pilot David Reynolds and passenger Leslie Boyens were both killed. The AAIB attributed the accident to carbon monoxide poisoning.

■Serious misjudgement killed the two men aboard a De Havilland Tiger Moth at the end of September. On cross country training between RAF Valley and RAF Llanbedr, the pilot carried out unauthorised aerobatics near Harlech, the home of his passenger. This infantile grandstanding ended catastrophically when the engine failed at the apex of a loop and the plane dived into the ground upside down at Llandanwg, killing Polish pilot Stanislaw Iwanoski and his colleague Robert Warr.

1950
■Wales went into a state of shock and made world-wide headlines after a heart-breaking tragedy on March 12th. A privately chartered Avro Tudor was returning from Dublin Airport on a sunny Sunday afternoon carrying five crew and 78 ebullient Welsh rugby fans who the day before had watched Wales beat Ireland 6-3 at the Ravenhill Stadium in Belfast to win a first Triple Crown for 39 years. Approaching RAF Llandow (still a military base but also available for commercial flights), the pilot judged that the altitude was too low so revved the engine to make the approach again. But the plane rose too steeply into the air, stalled and plummeted to the ground just east of the runway in a field adjacent to Park Farm (no longer operating) at the village of Sigingstone (Tresigin). Amid the horribly mangled wreckage, 80 were killed and just three passengers survived – one was in the toilet and two, including Handel Rogers (1916-2004) from Llanelli who would go on to become President of the WRU in 1976, were sitting in seats that had been added to the tail section. All five of the crew died: pilot Dennis Parsons plus John Berry, Andrew Graham, Bernard O’Carroll and stewardess Daphne Davidson. The passenger victims, many of whom had never flown before, came from right across Wales’ rugby heartlands:

GWENT (Monmouthshire)
Ivor Jones, William Jones (Aberbîg)
Douglas Burnett, Mark Lewis, Albert Robins, Donald Rowlands, Joseph Watkins (Abercarn)
Charles Turner (Abersychan)
Brinley Jones, Glyndwr Winstone (Abertillery)
Colin Jenkins, Albert Smith, Edgar Watkins (Blaenafon)
Jess Evans, George Prior (Blaina)
Ray Box (Crumlin)
William Irving, David Jones, William Nicholas (Cwmbrân)
Kathleen Davies (Cwmcarn)
George Burnett (Farteg)
Ronald Price (Garndiffaith)
Bert Butcher, William Stevens, Arthur Williams, John Williams (Llantarnam)
William Portlock (Nelson)
William Uren (Newbridge)
Alan Blizzard, Noel Goodwin (Pontymister)
Reginald Beavis, Thomas Blunt, Ivor Guy, Thomas Jerman, Austin Morrisey, Alexander Paterson (Risca)
John Davies, William Gwynn, Harold John (Ystrad Mynach)
GLAMORGAN
Hywel Hopkins (Aberafan)
William Ash, Harold Dunscombe (Cardiff)
Wilma Jones, David Nelson, William Nelson, Barbara Thomas (Glynneath)
Herbert Rees (Godre’r Graig)
William Brooks, William Coles, Daniel Griffiths, Henry Pascoe, Lloyd Richards, Robert Thomas (Llanharan)
David Read (Parkmill)
David Hopkins, Johnny Read (Pontardawe)
David Burgess, Illian Evans, Mary Hegarty, Roy Masson, David Owen, Herbert Thomas (Pontypridd)
David Hawkins, Kathleen Hawkins (Porthcawl)
John Walters (Port Talbot)
Richard Bradley, Sidney Hill, Ivor Oxlade (Swansea)
Beatrice Masson, John Masson (Trefforest)
Thomas Jonathan (Ystalyfera)
CARMARTHENSHIRE
Elwyn Davies, Gomer Griffiths, William Schofield (Garnant)
BRECONSHIRE
Lleufer Jonathan (Ystradgynlais)

The subsequent public inquiry, held in Cardiff’s Law Courts, was a disgrace. Avro Tudors, manufactured in Manchester, were hopelessly dated, cumbersome and gimcrack aeroplanes that had already caused 54 fatalities in the previous three years and been banned from carrying passengers on publicly-owned airlines, yet private operators were somehow permitted to bypass that restriction. The private operator of this Avro Tudor, Airflight Ltd based in Berkshire, was found guilty of contravening the certificate of worthiness by the unauthorised jamming in of six extra seats and a complete disregard for weight considerations – yet this greedy criminal negligence received no more punishment than a piddling £50 fine (equivalent to £2000 today), a contemptuous outcome given that that one of the main reasons for the crash was the “acute instability” and shifting of the plane’s centre of gravity caused by overloading and incorrect distribution of passengers and luggage. The far-right owner of Airflight Ltd, Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennett (1910-1986), an unscrupulous Australian ‘entrepreneur’, quickly brushed it all under the carpet by simply winding up the company. By 1954 Avro Tudors would be scrapped and by 1963 Avro itself was defunct.

This was the worst ever air disaster in Wales, surpassing the 20 fatalities on June 8th 1945 (see above), and remains so to this day. In addition, it was the worst air disaster in the UK until 1972. More than that, up to this point in time it was the worst ever disaster* in the history of aviation, eclipsing the previous record of 73 fatalities jointly set by an Akron Airship crash in New Jersey in 1933 and a B-24 Liberator crash in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in 1943 (it didn’t take long for Llandow itself to be exceeded; in December 1952 a USAAF Douglas Globemaster crashed into Moses Lake in Washington State and 87 died). Now, 75 years later, 130,000 commercial flights take off every day and huge jumbo jets criss-cross the planet, so inevitably Llandow has steadily dropped down the rankings of air disasters. Nevertheless, it is still (with 12 others) the joint 286th worst accident of all time. The current record stands at the 583 deaths on two jumbos (PanAm and KLM) when they collided when taking off at Tenerife in 1977 (the estimated 1,700 and 1,000 killed when two hijacked Boeings flew into the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 cannot be counted as those crashes were not accidental).

Two weeks after the crash, Wales beat France 21-0 at Cardiff Arms Park to win the Grand Slam for the first time since 1911. Before kick-off, the capacity crowd of 45,000 fell into hushed silence as six buglers paid tribute to the dead with a poignant rendition of the Last Post.

*NOTE
Five years earlier, on March 5th 1945, 80 also died when a Dornier taking Polish children to Germany for fear of what the approaching Soviet Red Army might do to them crashed into Lake Resko. The crash was kept secret when the USSR took control of Poland shortly afterwards, and wasn’t made public until the 1990s.

■Three days later on the night of March 14th/15th, more aerial death was visited upon Wales. An Avro Lincoln from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire was on a cross-country training exercise with two other Lincolns when they were diverted to RAF Valley as the weather deteriorated. Two of them reached Valley safely, but one did not. The crew completely lost their bearings and went the wrong way, flying into the screes on the high ridge linking Carnedd Llewelyn and Carnedd Dafydd in Eryri. All six died: pilot John Shore, navigator Cyril Lindsey, engineer Ronald Forsdyke, radio operator Harold Charman, and gunners Godfrey Cundy and Robert Wood. The whole area today is nothing more than a disgraceful dump of aircraft pieces of all shapes and sizes, polluting and disfiguring Wales’ magical landscape for reasons that no war-loving zealot is able to justify or explain.

■The carnage of March 1950 continued. In order to obtain a Certificate of Airworthiness, a Bristol Freighter was on a test run from Bristol’s Filton Airport (then a private airfield, today used by BAE Systems to manufacture Airbus parts). But, wouldn’t you know it, the fuselage stern suffered structural failure and it crashed into fields near Ystradowen in the Vale of Glamorgan, killing all four on board (names unknown). The Certificate of Airworthiness was not forthcoming.

■The RAF were reluctant to declare Spitfires redundant, even though it was becoming increasingly clear they were yesterday’s aircraft. On May 21st, a Spitfire on unnecessary aerobatics training from RAF Hooton Park crashed into the sea at Gronant near Prestatyn, only just avoiding people on the beach. Pilot Kenneth Evans died and the plane was destroyed.

1951
■The Harvard, an American single-engine training aircraft, was used by the RAF from the 1930s through to the 1970s. On March 19th the lone pilot of a Harvard from RAF Aldergrove made fundamental mistakes: he took off in completely inappropriate weather conditions, followed an incorrect course across Wales and flew below the recommended safety height. As a result, the iced-up plane crashed into Hope Mountain, west of Caergwrle in Flintshire, and pilot James Hanna was killed.

■During air-to-ground ‘live firing’ at Pembrey gunnery range, the pilot of an RAF Llandow De Havilland Vampire pulled out of a dive too sharply. The plane stalled at high speed, spun into the sea with violent force and pilot Edward Campbell was killed.

■The Vampire had entered operational service with the RAF just after the end of WW2 and, although fairly straightforward in comparison to later aeroplanes, the jet fighter was still a demanding beast for trainee pilots. On July 2nd a Vampire from RAF Valley crashed into the sea off Ynys Llanddwyn and the Iranian pilot Mohammed Sirang was killed (Iran at the time was essentially a British client state which the UK plundered for its vast oil resources – but the Iranian revolution of 1979 which toppled the Shah would derail that particular gravy train). Inside the tricky cockpit, instruments had failed and Sirang had inadvertently inflated the emergency dinghy.

■After the starboard engine of a Beaufighter from RAF Manorbier failed while on a training flight, the two-man crew attempted to return to base. With the aircraft struggling and losing height, they attempted to land on the old runway at disused Carew Cheriton. But the plane hit trees and crashed into a field at Pincheston Farm (now a complex of ‘residential units’). Pilot Zdzislaw Bartoszuik and winch operator William Payne both died in the impact.

■The pathological need of the British armed services to glorify and commemorate themselves at every opportunity came unstuck at RAF St Athan on September 15th. In a ‘Battle of Britain Air Display’ at the airfield, John Maynard, the pilot of a Harvard, was indulging in flashy manoeuvres when he failed to pull out of a dive in time and died when the plane whacked into the ground.

■A Wellington from RAF Hullavington was on a training flight over Wales when the plane ran out of fuel – the pilot had incorrectly assumed someone else had turned on the fuel cocks. As both engines spluttered to a halt, pilot Paul Proctor ordered his four man crew to bail out while he attempted an emergency landing. The men landed safely, but he died as the aircraft crashed near Bron Felin Farm (still extant) west of Llanidloes.

■On November 7th a Vampire from RAF Valley was on a familiarisation flight when air traffic control abruptly lost contact with the pilot. The explanation was soon forthcoming: the aircraft had crashed into the limestone escarpment of Mynydd Rhiwabon. In thick cloud, pilot John Cobb had mistakenly thought he was flying over the Welsh coast not the uplands. He was found alive but died in hospital of his injuries.

1952
■Another terrible air crash happened in Wales on January 10th. An Aer Lingus Douglas Dakota with 20 passengers and three crew on board was on a scheduled passenger flight to Dublin from RAF Northolt (being used as London’s main civilian airport while Heathrow was being expanded). Nothing seemed amiss as the aircraft passed various radar checkpoints, but deep into Wales radio messages suddenly ceased. The Dakota had hit powerful down-currents and turbulence amidst the peaks of Eryri, causing the pilot to lose control, and smashed into the boglands of remote Cwm Edno. All 23 people on board were killed. Only 10 of the victims recovered from the extremely boggy ground could be identified; 19 of the dead were Irish, the others from America, South Africa and the UK. The AAIB delivered a lengthy report but could not explain the crash. Since the fatalities were merely civilians not the lionized gods of military exceptionalism, all the wreckage debris was thankfully cleared away and a perfectly sufficient unobtrusive memorial plaque placed near the crash site.

■On March 8th a Mosquito privately owned by Airwork Services Limited, a company contracted to train RNAS staff, was on a training flight with a FAA pilot and a civilian pilot instructor on board when they lost control and crashed at what was briefly RNAS St David’s. Both pilots, Charles Mason and P Tapper, were killed.

■The pilot of a Mosquito from RAF Aston Down got bored with practising circuits and landings at his base so requested permission to go further afield along the Severn estuary. Air Traffic Control complacently granted the permission – and it killed Gregory Brindley. His wrecked aircraft was found on the ‘Welsh Grounds’ sandbanks off the Gwent coast.

■The Canberra was the RAF’s first jet bomber, introduced in 1951 and manufactured by English Electric, a conglomerate formed from various smaller companies. On a test flight to RAF Llandow from Farnborough Airport in Hampshire, home of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, a Canberra stalled on its approach, struck the ground and was destroyed as it violently bounced along the runway. Experienced test pilot Richard Bradwell and his co-pilot Andrew Millar both died.

■ On May 5th the solo pilot of a Gloster Meteor flying from RAF Ouston in Northumberland to RAF Llandow somehow managed to drift wildly off course and ended up 150 miles north of Llandow over Cardigan Bay with his fuel running out. He decided to bail out. The Meteor ditched into the sea off Abermaw but, in deep water and powerful currents, Desmond Clarke couldn’t be found by Air Sea Rescue and drowned.

■Three Vampires from RAF Merryfield in Somerset were practising formation flying over Cardiff on July 14th when the middle one swerved to avoid the leading Vampire only to collide with the third. The two pilots parachuted out of their disintegrating planes. One of them landed in the Severn where he was picked up by a Swedish ship, while his plane clattered into ground and ignited near Pontcanna Farm (converted into TV studios for TWW in 1958 which were demolished in 1984 and replaced by the housing of Fields Park Road). The other pilot also found safety, conveniently floating down to the old RAF Pengam Moors airfield (closed 1946, then used for civilian flying until closing for good in 1954). But the plane’s momentum took it northwards as it fell apart sprinkling dangerous debris on Cardiff and tragically a huge chunk crashed through the roof of the Llandaff Hotel in Cardiff Road and killed 53-year-old chambermaid Georgina Evans from Canton who was cleaning on the third floor (it became Churchills Hotel in the 1980s and in 2015 the 1855 Grade II Listed Building was converted into nine very expensive houses).

■On the same day a Hawker Sea Fury, a speedy fighter used by the Royal Navy after WW2, crashed into fields at Hawarden not far from its base at RNAS Stretton in Cheshire. The pilot died but the Navy, characteristically, never released his name.

■During formation practice, a Vampire from RAF Valley emerged from cloud cover out of control. It came down seven miles from Ynys Môn in Caernarfon Bay and solo pilot George Dexter was killed.

■Slackness and incompetence were to blame for the crash of an Anson flying from RAF Aldegrove to RAF Llandow to pick up spare parts on August 11th. Scarcely credibly, the crew failed to check weather conditions before departing and planned to fly far too low at 2,000 feet – schoolboy howlers considering the flight-path was down the entire length of stormy, mountainous Wales. Hitting bad weather almost immediately, unable to fix their location and wandering far off course, the inevitable happened. The Anson flew straight into Yr Wyddfa close to Clogwyn Station on the Snowdon Mountain Railway, skidded along the track and burst into flames. Pilot Julian Maleńczuk, signaller John Tracey and civilian contractor Mr W Elliot all died instantly. The Railway was blocked by the crash and, in dreadful weather, 120 marooned passengers were unable to descend from the summit. They spent a unforgettable night on Yr Wyddfa while the bodies were recovered and the track was cleared.

■On November 19th a Vampire from RAF Valley, on a solo aerobatic sortie, was spotted above Cemaes Bay at the northern tip of Ynys Môn and then was never seen again. It was presumed that the aircraft had crashed into the Irish Sea and pilot Geoffrey Felstead was dead.

1953
■A Boeing Washington heavy-duty bomber based at RAF Marham (obtained by the RAF from the USAAF in 1951), was night-time training over Wales on January 8th. While cruising at an altitude of 19,000 feet, the plane suddenly suffered total failure and went into an irreversible dive, hitting ground in the delightful countryside near the Denbighshire village of Llanarmon-yn-Iâl. Amid debris scattered over a wide area, all 10 on board were found dead: pilot William Sloane, co-pilot Cecil Speller, navigators Michael Lightowler and Edward Pearton, gunners Maurice Clifton, Robert Hughson, Albert Reakes and Frank Wheeler, engineer Anthony Martin and signaller Robert Anderson. The cause of the accident was never discovered. It would have been quick: the crew didn’t even have time to send a Mayday message or bail out.

■A Vampire from RAF Valley disappeared into thin air somewhere off the northern Welsh coast. It was never seen again, no wreckage or body was found and pilot Edward Chilvers was presumed dead. Vampires’ tendency to suffer engine failure encouraged the RAF to phase them out by the end of the 1950s.

■A De Havilland Sea Hornet, contracted out by the Navy to private operator Airwork Services, set off from RNAS St David’s and simply disappeared from the radar 30 miles off St Ann’s Head. Some bits of wreckage did turn up, but contracted civilian pilot Derek Vernon-Saw was never found.

■Another Vampire had to be written off on March 9th when it crashed near Llansteffan at the mouth of the Afon Tywi in Carmarthenshire after plunging down from high altitude. Solo pilot William Brown was killed and the AAIB concluded that he had been stricken by oxygen starvation.

■Unless you count the ‘Cold War’ this was a comparatively peaceful period, yet the British State remained hooked on war and so the consequential accidents kept on coming – particularly in Wales, that all-purpose military boot camp and handy guinea pig. Inevitably a Vampire was involved in the next incident. Shortly after taking off from RAF Valley, pilot George Pitts-Tucker immediately lost engine power and requested permission to return to base. In attempting a difficult turn without power, he overshot the runway, the starboard wing-tip hit the ground, the plane careered out of control until coming to a halt a mile west of Valley, and he died.

■RNAS Anthorn was an airbase overlooking the Solway Firth in Cumberland, often used by the Netherlands Navy in this period. A pair of Dutch Sea Fury fighters took off from Anthorn on May 19th on a training flight but catastrophically collided over Rhydwyn in Ynys Môn, killing both the (unnamed) pilots.

■Another day, another Vampire crash. Approaching its RAF Valley base, the plane was seen to lose altitude in a flat inverted spin and it plonked down onto a barn at Trefor, six miles from Valley. Despite having bailed out, Lebanese pilot G Rahal died: for unknown reasons, perhaps panic, he hadn’t pulled his parachute’s ripcord.

■On August 12th a Swedish Air Force De Havilland Venom took off from RAF Hawarden on a delivery flight to Stockholm. But straight away a fire broke out in the engine bay and the plane crashed onto Sealand Road near the English border, just missing buildings in the process. Pilot Olof Hedman and navigator Bengt Andersson both died.

■Surprise, surprise: a Vampire from RAF Pembrey crashed minutes after take off when it caught fire and looped downwards in a series of agonising spirals, flames shooting from the fuselage. Then the bloodthirsty plane stalled, rammed into the airfield and broke up. Instructor pilot Lionel Wakeford and his pupil William Williams couldn’t survive all of that.

■On October 9th a Mosquito on a training flight from RNAS Brawdy, outsourced by the Navy to Airwork, didn’t get beyond the runway before it crashed, killing pilot Norman MacKay and the Airwork instructor Mr R Jeffery.

■Not to be outdone, on the same day a Vampire from RAF Pembrey flew into the west slope of brooding Fan Hir in the western Bannau Brycheiniog, killing the solo pilot John Baldock. Much of the ugly wreckage remains on the site and somebody, maybe seeking brownie points from his non-existent sky-god, has assembled bits of metal into a silly miniature effigy of a Vampire. How tasteless! How kitsch!

■A Gloster Meteor from RAF Western Zoyland in Somerset ditched into the sea near Tenby and sank to the sea-bed. New Zealander Ronald Bent, the solo pilot, had bailed out but searches failed to find him – until he turned up two weeks later, a decomposing corpse on the banks of the River Parrett in Somerset.

■Engine failure terminated the flying career of a Vampire from RAF Valley and its pilot Peter Bancroft. The plane plonked into the Irish Sea near Ynysoedd y Moelrhoniaid and Bancroft was never found.

■On October 27th one more Vampire was wiped out. While flying from RAF Valley on a training exercise, the fuel tank fell off. The plane crashed into the bleak, ravaged moors on the Glamorgan/Gwent border between Dowlais Top and Rhymney and pilot Derek Raypert died.

■The last fatal crash of the year in Wales involved, fittingly, a Vampire. Embarking on a demanding delivery flight from RAF Hawarden all the way to Iraq, with a planned stop-over at the De Havilland company’s HQ, Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, the ridiculously unreliable boneshaker got no further than 10 miles south. The engine failed and it crashed in the fields of Ty’n-yr-ynn Farm (still existing) at Nercwys, a quirky linear village near Mold. With its tanks full, the aircraft burst into flames on impact and the civilian pilot Michael Hills-Johns was killed.

1954
■Inevitably, the first fatal crash of the year involved a Vampire. Taking off from RAF Valley with an instructor and a pupil on board, within minutes it was in trouble. People on the ground saw the aircraft go into that Vampire speciality, an uncontrolled descending spin, and it dived into arable land near Pentraeth, close to the Red Wharf Bay branch (closed to passengers 1930, to freight 1950) of the Anglesey Central Railway (closed to passengers 1964, to freight 1993). Instructor Jack Marshall and pupil Edwin Mitchell both died.

■On March 3rd a Sunderland flying boat ‘porpoised’ (i.e. suddenly reared up and then pitched down) when taking off from RAF Pembroke Dock. Shattered and sinking in the middle of the Haven, two of its crew were saved by the heroic flight engineer Ernest Evans who twice dived into the wreckage to rescue them. Nevertheless, seven of the 11 men on board drowned (names unavailable).

■At RAF Llandow on June 16th a Vampire’s port wing broke off and fractured the tail as it descended back down to the airfield going far too fast and at an incorrect trajectory. Solo pilot Arthur Whetter died in the violent impact and four other aircraft parked near the runway were either destroyed or damaged beyond repair.

■Henryk Bieniek, the pilot of a Vampire from RAF Mona, died when practising aerobatics over the airfield. The capricious plane went into an alarming yaw and dived into the ground.

■Taking off from RNAS Brawdy, a Seahawk had hardly risen above Brawdy’s hangars before it rolled over, crashed into a field at nearby Rhosgranog and exploded. Pilot Robert Dale was killed.

■Navy pilot Derek Lawrence was taking a Gloster Meteor on a long cross-country flight from RNAS Brawdy to RNAS Lossiemouth when he succumbed to anoxia. His plane crashed into the back garden of a house (still standing) at Llangoedmor in Ceredigion and he died.

■On November 17th, two Vampires from RAF Pembrey were practising attack moves over Gŵyr when they collided, exploded, crashed into the sea off Port Eynon Point and were destroyed. Both pilots, Robert Holland and Peter Green, died.

1955
■The fact that the first fatal crash of 1955 didn’t occur until July 3rd was a clear sign that military flying over Wales was at last beginning to diminish – underlined by the crash involving a recreational Tipsy Trainer monoplane belonging to the Cardiff Aeroplane Club, which kept a fleet of Tiger Moths and Tipsys at the redundant Pengam Moors airfield. The brittle little plane came down in farmland adjacent to the River Rhymni at St Mellons, killing a pupil (name unknown) and his instructor Ivor Lewis. As a boy I played in the plane’s significant impact crater; today it is hardly discernible.

■Later in the month a Vampire from RAF Valley on a night navigation exercise caught fire in mid-air and crashed into fields just north of Rhuthun. Naval pilot Brian Macey, on assignment from the FAA, bailed out too late and died in the impact.

■On the last day of the year a Vampire (what else) from the RAF Valley flying school nosedived into the ground at Tynllan Farm north of Llangefni after the canopy detached and damaged the tail. Pilot Malcolm Farrow was killed. Tynllan, like so many places in Ynys Môn that were once the homes of Welsh people, is now a cluster of lucrative holiday cottages owned by absentee landlords.

1956
■On February 2nd a Vampire departed from RAF Valley for 40 minutes of aerobatics training and disappeared from the radar after last being located off Cemaes Bay. It was speculated that the plane dived into the sea after failing to recover from an intended loop. Eventually FAA pilot Michael Burns was pronounced dead.

■A Boulton Paul Sea Balliol from RNAS Brawdy, used for training in the art of landing on aircraft carrier decks, couldn’t cope with engine failure and ditched into stormy seas off Penmaen Dewi. Pilot Frank Babcock was killed but the cadet trainee on board inflated his dinghy and survived a hair-raising helicopter rescue.

■A Vampire from RAF Valley had only been in the air for 15 minutes before, at high speed, it flew into the steep lower ridges of Moel Eilio east of Llyn Eigiau reservoir in Eryri. The 19-year-old pilot, FAA trainee Robert Armitage, was killed and the cause of the crash was never determined. Surrounded by spectacular mountains, Llyn Eigiau was built in 1911 to supply water to the works of Aluminium Corporation Ltd at Dolgarrog. In 1925, after repeated safety warnings had been ignored for years, the dam broke. A tsunami of water surged down the Afon Porth-llwyd valley into the smaller Coedty reservoir, which also burst, and then the millions of gallons of water proceeded down the valley and pulverised the small village of Dolgarrog, killing 16 people. The inquest returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’ and there were no punishments or fines for Aluminium Corporation Ltd which rebuilt the dam and just carried on making big profits from the cheap hydro-electricity – nor were there any memorials to the dead of Dolgarrog. It took until 2004 before the efforts of local people established a memorial walk and a plaque. The aluminium works closed in 2007, with the loss of 170 jobs. From 2015 it became the site of the ‘Surf Snowdonia’ inland surfing facility, a vulgar tourism gimmick owned outside Wales that was an environmental catastrophe and closed in 2023. The latest plan is for a who-needs-it ‘Adventure Parc’. It was for this tacky, unsustainable, infantile barrel-scraping that our mountains and valleys and resources have been ransacked?

■Details are hard to come by regarding a Gloster Meteor from RNAS Brawdy which struck a nearby cottage while attempting to land at the base on May 15th – the publicly owned and funded ‘Senior Service’ being far less inclined than the RAF to divulge information. Suffice to say, FAA pilot John Holmes was killed

■On May 25th a Sea Hawk was orbiting RNAS Brawdy waiting for clearance to land when an aileron disengaged causing the aircraft to go into a frenzied roll. Solo pilot David Hakesley died as it splattered into the ground a mile from the runway.

■Brawdy Air Show, an annual public relations exercise by the Royal Navy, backfired horribly on August 4th. Gawping holidaymakers and aviation addicts witnessed the live death of pilot John Mitchell as his aerobatic showboating in a Sea Balliol went amiss. The plane hit ground beyond the runway and exploded.

■A Vampire from RAF Hawarden was flying to RAF Llanbedr when pilot Alan Groom was overcome by oxygen starvation (he had been wearing a badly-fitting mask). Groom died when the plane crashed near the village of Capel Celyn in the Afon Tryweryn valley. Nine years later the Capel Celyn community and its beautiful valley would also be killed off, to provide Liverpool with a free water supply (see April 1945 above).

■On September 28th, the engine of a Vampire from RAF Valley failed shortly after take-off. With orange flames coming from the tailpipe, pilot Arthur Jeffrey turned the plane back towards Valley. He didn’t make it; the aircraft lost altitude, banked, hit the ground, broke up short of the runway and Jeffrey died. Question: how did Vampire boss Geoffrey de Havilland (1882-1965), the self-important pioneering aircraft engineer responsible for its design, sleep at night?

■During Autumn an FAA pilot was training on Vampires at RAF Valley – a bad idea if ever there was one. Only 10 minutes after take off on October 12th, pilot Roy Davies had steered the plane into Mynydd Mawr, a giant presence in western Eryri. He died as the Vampire fell apart. Countless pieces of metal were dispersed across the mountain top and down its eastern flank, and most of them are still there.

1957
■With plodding predictability the first fatal crash of the year involved, yes that’s right, a Vampire from RAF Valley. Spinning out of control, the fuselage disintegrated and part of it struck the pilot and knocked him out. At least this meant John Taylor was mercifully unconscious when he hit the ground near Bodelwyddan in Denbighshire.

■Two Meteors flying in formation from RAF Pembrey came into contact with each other near Pen Pyrod at the western tip of Gŵyr. Although one got back to Pembrey safely, the other had to be abandoned. Pilot Ralph Hayes ejected, but the parachute failed to deploy and he was killed on impact with the ground near Rhosili.

 ■On June 20th a Hawker Hunter developed an aileron fault shortly after take off from RAF Pembrey. The Hunter lost height, went into a roll and crashed uncomfortably close to Cydweli railway station and nearby houses. Malayan pilot Frederick Jacques ejected far too late and was killed in the impact.

■Robert Barnes, the pilot of a Meteor from RAF Llanbedr was carrying out low-level trials but failed to climb to a safe height in mountainous territory. He flew into the unyielding rock face of the gigantic Yr Eifl quarry near Trefor on Llŷn and was killed. The quarry, which opened in 1850, soon became the world’s biggest granite quarry. Then, after every last slab of usable granite had been extracted, it was closed in 1965. Yet another shocking example of the rape of Wales, its frightening chasms, sheer slopes and extraordinarily sinister ruined buildings have to be seen to be believed.

■On December 9th a Canberra from RAF Pershore was testing radar that had been installed on the summit of Drum in the Carneddau Range. Lost in cloud it struck Carnedd Llewellyn, killing pilot William Bell and navigator Kenneth Shelley. It goes without saying that wreckage remains all over the place today, splattered down steep ridges and into the serene Ffynnon Llyffant lake. For this desecration, and all the others in Wales, we can thank the Thatcher government’s 1986 Protection of Military Remains Act which, ridiculously, treats rusting scrap as sacrosanct (she was throwing a bit of red meat to Tory rightwingers who care nothing for ordinary people but get very sentimental if they wear uniforms). If Wales controlled its own affairs, or just had a devolved government with intelligence, principles and courage, the big clear up of our mountains could begin.

■Two Sea Hawks from RNAS Brawdy were practising formation night flying over the airfield when they ineptly collided. Both pilots ejected: one floated to Earth safely but the unnamed other pilot was killed. He and the two planes came down at Portfield Gate, west of Haverfordwest.

■To round off the year as it began: the fatal crash of a Vampire from RAF Valley. On December 12th three Vampires were practising formation looping, in defiance of common sense, when something went wrong with one of the planes and the pilot announced he was bailing out. That too went wrong, Nicholas Lipscomb couldn’t execute the bail-out properly and, trapped in the plunging aircraft, died on impact with fields near Capel Coch, five miles north of Llangefni.

1958
■A Canberra from RAF St Athan, on a test flight following routine maintenance, was seen flying too low over Garn Goch, the largest Neolithic stone monument in the British Isles. The next sighting was over 10 miles further south when, making the alarming noises that indicate engine failure, it dived into the ground near Llangennech. Solo pilot James Wallace was killed.

■On February 3rd, a Sea Hawk on a navigation exercise from RNAS Lossiemouth stalled as it approached RAF Valley. The aircraft hit the ground short of the runway, reared up and then broke in two, killing South African pilot Elemer Veres.

■The rotor blade of a Dragonfly rescue helicopter, made by Westland in Yeovil, detached as it was taking off from RNAS Brawdy. All three occupants were killed in the destructive crash – as was becoming customary, the Royal Navy didn’t release their names.

■While practising dive-bombing over St Brides Bay on March 3rd, a Sea Hawk from RNAS Brawdy failed to pull out of a dive and hit the sea with force. The anonymous pilot died.

■Practising for one of RNAS Brawdy’s self-aggrandising air shows, a Vampire attempted an over-ambitious roll and never came out of it, hitting the runway hard. The plane was a write-off and pilot A Howarth perished.

■To end the year in the traditional way, on December 22nd a Vampire from RAF Valley self-combusted after take off for unknown reasons and dived vertically into the ground alongside the Afon Caradog seven miles away. The pilot (name not released) struggled to eject on time and was killed.

1959
■The De Havilland Sea Venom was a naval version of the Venom, designed to operate from aircraft carriers. On January 21st two of them from RNAS Brawdy were conducting mock air battles at the land-based aircraft carrier called HMS Harrier (the former RAF Kete). Turning high above the sea 10 miles off Pen Caer, the planes collided and both pilots (unnamed) were killed.

■Only luck prevented a far worse disaster on May 6th when a De Havilland Dove twin-engine light aircraft crashed onto North Road in Cardiff, hit a parked van and exploded. It somehow avoided any moving traffic or pedestrians on the busy main road and just missed adjacent Maindy Stadium where 500 boys from nearby Cathays High School were attending their sports day. By chance a newly-built garage it wrecked hadn’t yet had its petrol pumps filled or there would have been a lethal conflagration – nevertheless, the Dove’s ignited petrol tanks still sent a wave of fire downhill towards the city centre and into drains, stretching the fire brigade’s resources to breaking point. All four men on board were killed: pilot Paul Chambers from Littlehampton in Sussex and his three passengers, Ronald Aston from Sully, Reginald Burchell from Canton and Kenneth Woodfield from Weston-super-Mare. The plane, which had set off from Pengam Moors airfield, had been hired by Lec Refrigerators of Bognor Regis as a promotion gimmick for the Ideal Home Exhibition which began the same day at Sophia Gardens Pavilion (using an old hangar from RAF Stormy Down, the Pavilion opened in 1951 and closed in 1982 when snow caused the roof to collapse – it is now the site of a car park). The inquiry unequivocally attributed blame to inexperienced 24-year-old pilot Chambers, suggesting that he deliberately shut off one engine to flaunt his flying skills. Since this explanation made no sense at all, one must presume it was some sort of cover-up.

■An Avro Anson travelling from RAF Bovingdon in Hertfordshire to RAF Ballykelly in County Londonderry was told to divert to RAF Valley to pick up another passenger. This prompted the pilot to reduce altitude and, in cloudy conditions, the plane smacked into Foel Lwyd, an outlier of the Carneddau Range, killing the three men on board: pilot Ernest Hart, navigator Pran Handa and passenger John Preston.

■The pilot of a Vampire from RAF St Athan was killed when the crate ditched into the Severn as it approached RAF Llandow on June 12th. Oddly, neither his name nor the cause of the crash was released.

■A Handley Page Victor from RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire was undertaking high-altitude trials over the Welsh coast when, 54,000 feet up, a wing tip pitot tube detached, setting off a sequence of catastrophic structural failures that caused the aircraft to go into a terrifying high-speed dive. The crew of five all died when it smashed into the Irish Sea not far from Milford Haven: pilot R Morgan, co-pilot G Stockman, navigator L Williams, electronics officer R Hannaford and Handley Page observer R Williams. An unprecedented salvage operation then ensued for the next 14 months, involving 46 ships and over 11,000 deep-sea trawls. Nearly 600,000 pieces of the Victor were recovered, amounting to 70% of the aircraft. Hmm…so much for the untouchable sanctity of military wreckage. One has to wonder what was so important about this aircraft that it couldn’t be left to slowly disintegrate in the salty fathoms on the seabed.

1962
■For the first time since 1934 there were no fatal air crashes in Wales in 1960. This happy state of affairs, a reflection of the closure of RAF airfields, general demilitarisation and huge advances in technology, safety and training, continued through 1961. Then, on August 8th 1962, the interlude was ended by – yes, you guessed, a Vampire from RAF Valley. It stalled on approaching RAF Mona (only six miles away, why not just catch the bus?), crashed into trees and destroyed a cottage south of the airfield. Pilot Francis Marriott died.

■On August 16th a quirky Jodel light aeroplane, a low-winged little thing made of wood, crashed shortly after take off at Rhoose Airport. It was owned by Cardiff Ultralight Aeroplane Club and the solo pilot, whose name remains unknown, died in the impact.

■On November 16th, a Westland Whirlwind helicopter took off from HMS Hermes in the Irish Sea bound for RNAS Brawdy. Near South Bishop Island (Emsger), five miles off Penmaen Dewi, the aircraft suffered total engine failure and came down slowly into the sea. On striking the rough water it immediately rolled over and sank in less than a minute. The two man crew and one of the three passengers on board were rescued by another helicopter from HMS Hermes, but the other two passengers died: Squadron Leader Stott and 2nd Baron Windlesham, a member of the House of Lords.

1963
■On July 24th, all three crew aboard a Whirlwind from RNAS Brawdy died when returning to base in bad weather. The helicopter came down in a field and ignited at Trefgarn Owen just east of Brawdy. Helicopter crashes are usually lethal – and that was the case for pilot Terence Flinn and his crewmen Robert Skelton and Rodney Timms.

■During a delivery flight from RAF Sydenham to RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, a fuel leak in the port jet pipe of a Fairey Gannet anti-submarine aircraft suddenly ignited. The fire spread quickly to the fuel tank and the plane exploded, killing pilot Harry Proudlove instantly. Burning pieces of the disintegrated aircraft came down at the ancient church of Michaelchurch-on-Arrow on the Radnorshire side of the border with England.

1965
■Ground control at RNAS Brawdy wasn’t up to scratch on February 23rd as a Gannet approached the airfield. Instructions caused the pilot to reduce power too sharply and the plane flew into the sea at Newgale. Both the crew, Daniel Ferguson and David McIntyre, were killed.

■The Folland Gnat was a short-lived aircraft manufactured in Southampton. A pair of them from RAF Valley collided during formation flying practice on April 22nd. One crashed at Lôn-y-Buarth near Carmel, six miles south of Caernarfon. A trainee on board had successfully ejected but pilot Timothy Mermegen bravely stayed at the controls to avoid houses at Carmel and was killed in the impact. The other plane, largely undamaged, got back to Valley but solo pilot Gavin Priest blundered by trying to land with the wheels up. The Gnat went into a roll on the runway and Priest then attempted to eject at ground level – another fatal mistake.

■Another Gnat was wiped out when it nosedived into Llyn Maelog at Rhosneigr just south of RAF Valley. Pilot Roger Cooper was killed.

■On November 23rd a Hawker Hunter was taking off from RNAS Brawdy when the plane’s sensors issued a fire warning. Both men on board successfully ejected as the Hunter hit the sea. One was rescued from St Brides Bay but student pilot David Hodges wasn’t reached in time and drowned.

1966
■Although the number of fatal accidents had decreased exponentially, the RAF’s insistence on treating Wales as nothing more than a handy training ground with no concerns and priorities of its own meant nasty crashes were always going to occur now and then. On February 11th, an Avro Vulcan on a training flight from RAF Cottesmore in Rutland flew into the summit of Fan Bwlch Chwyth in the Fforest Fawr hills of Bannau Brycheiniog. The jet-powered, wingless bomber was travelling at 450mph in poor visibility and the crew had incorrectly identified the plane’s location. All five of them died: pilots Graham Sutcliffe and John MacDonald, navigators Roger Clare and Brian Waring, and electronics officer Geoffrey Fuller.

■While landing at RAF Valley, the two-man crew of a Gnat had switched off hydraulics and auto-pilot and were foolishly operating the aircraft manually – a very difficult proposition which required enormous physical effort. They couldn’t do it and the Gnat crashed just short of the runway, killing both Bill Forse and Peter Stewart.

■The RAF left Hawarden in 1959 and it then evolved into a centre of aircraft manufacturing as well as a very busy airfield for private and commercial passenger flights. On April 18th Hawarden was being used to test a Vampire for the Austrian Air Force, but the generator drive failed, the electrical system became inoperable and the plane drifted into Mynydd Tarw in the Berwyn Range, killing pilot Alan Brandon and test observer Tony Chalk. The scrupulous Austrian owners made sure all the resultant debris was cleared away.

■There were two men aboard a Gnat from RAF Valley when it crashed into the dramatic screes and rock faces of Cnicht, five miles east of Beddgelert in Eryri. Pilot J Enston died while the other crew member did very well to eject in time and parachute to safety.

■On September 29th, a Hawker Hunter crashed on take off from RNAS Brawdy and fell into a field at Lower Rhosgranog Farm near Llandeloy north of the runway, causing carnage as it ploughed into a grazing flock of sheep. The trainee pilot, although injured, survived being ejected, but instructor David Starling left it too late and was killed. There is no truth in the rumour that cheap lamb chops were being sold at the Brawdy gates the following day – JOKE!! Spare me the dunking stool!

1967
■Following take off from RNAS Brawdy, the trainee pilot of a Hawker Hunter lost contact with the control tower. Pieces of floating debris soon made it apparent that the plane had crashed into St Brides Bay. Pilot R Bremmer, too disorientated to eject, was killed.

■At the old RAF Haverfordwest base a Slingsby Swallow glider owned by the West Wales Gliding Club dived into the ground immediately after take off and the pilot, whose name was never released, died.

■On September 4th, a Hunter from RAF Chivenor hit solid ground at Ferryside during a practice attack at Pembrey Range. Solo pilot T Sharp died.

■Two Hunters from RNAS Brawdy were on a dual training sortie over the Irish Sea on December 15th when they collided and crashed into the ocean 20 miles south-west of base. Each aeroplane had two men on board and all four successfully ejected, their parachutes descending into the daunting waters. Search and rescue located two of them, but the other two (surnames: Crisp and Devine) were never found.

1968
■A Cessna Skyhawk chartered by Luton Flying Club flew into Cadair Berwyn, the highest point in the Berwyn Range, on September 7th and all four occupants were killed. This was a textbook example of the irritating and deluded over-confidence of recreational flyers, vapid Baron von Richthofen wannabees getting overexcited when there’s a joystick in their hands. The pilot had only obtained his licence to fly nine days earlier, knew nothing about Wales’ geography or climate, lacked basic map-reading skills and completely disregarded instructions to return home if encountering adverse weather or poor visibility. No wonder the names of the deceased were never released.

■American aviation manufacturer Cessna was founded in Kansas in 1927. In its heyday following WW2 it produced a range of small, high-wing, piston-powered aircraft that became the most produced planes in history (today Cessna is part of the Textron conglomerate). On September 29th, a Cessna chartered from Western Airways with just the pilot on board was on a private flight between airfields in Hertfordshire and Lancashire when it made a massive departure from the planned route and ended up within the unforgiving peaks of Eryri. There was no escape: amateur pilot R Ducker had over-estimated his abilities, the Cessna walloped into scary Pen yr Ole Wen and he was killed.

■On November 6th, a Hunter on an unspecfied military exercise from RNAS Brawdy was still on its initial climb when it crashed into the sea off Caerfai south of St David’s, killing both occupants. As it was operated by arms-length private company Airwork, the names of the dead were kept secret, allowing the RAF to avoid public accountability – how convenient.

1969
■ A Hunter from RNAS Brawdy – the military’s top death-trap in this period – crashed into the slopes of Moel Hywel north of Rhaeadr when conducting low-level reconnaissance (translation: frightening livestock, wildlife and local people for no good reason). Solo pilot H Mansel-Smith didn’t get out alive.

■On August 15th, Y Chamseddine, a Lebanese Air Force pilot, died after taking off in a Hunter from RAF Valley. The plane went down at Rhosneigr, a blood-soaked graveyard for airmen just south of the runway.

■A Jodel light aircraft being flown from Birmingham to Dublin by an untrained civilian with his business colleague on board, both members of the Staverton Flying School in England, crashed into Carnedd Dafydd near Bethesda on August 22nd. Pilot John West and passenger Terrence Long both died, of course. The errors they made are too numerous to catalogue here. On the plus side, they left no mess: Jodels being made from biodegradable wood and balsa.

1970
■The new decade began with a Folland Gnat diving into the ground at Llanfaelog shortly after take off from RAF Valley. Anthony Carter and Peter Phillips both died.

■RAF Fairwood Common was decommissioned in 1949 and renamed Swansea Airport in 1957 (ultimately a failed attempt to draw the jet-set to the ugly lovely town). The keen amateurs of Swansea Flying Club were frequent users of the airfield by 1970. On May 2nd, flying a Cessna owned by the Club, local man John Roberts died when, in wet and windy weather, the plane crashed near Llangyfelach in a field that would be covered by the M4 motorway in 1980.

1971
■A Piper Cherokee light aircraft was on private flight from Frankfurt in Germany to Shannon Airport in Ireland when the plane destabilised drastically following an abrupt recovery from a steep dive, perhaps caused by passenger Anton Block (who had a history of heart disease and was sitting next to the pilot in the cockpit) inadvertently interfering with the control column. The tail assembly snapped off, a wing crumbled and the Cherokee crashed into a field near Saron in Carmarthenshire. All four Germans on board died: pilot Wilhelm Klohoker and his passengers Messrs Block, Lewicki and Peters.

■On May 17th a Hunter from RAF Valley on a training flight was sabotaged by a strong tailwind that meant the plane was going too fast to avoid a ridge near Penmachno in Eryri – an area riddled with old slate quarries and tips, not to mention huge conifer forests, holiday lets and Airbnbs. The occupants, J Loftus and J Duckworth, were killed in the explosive crash.

■Another Hunter, this one from RAF Chivenor, crashed into a hillside near wonderfully isolated Cwmystwyth in Ceredigion on November 8th. Crewmen J Metcalfe and B Yong died in the impact.

1972
■Two Hawker Hunters had just departed RAF Valley on August 10th when they touched wings. That was enough to bring them down onto Silver Bay Caravan Park a couple of miles west of Valley, killing both pilots, C Ashe and T Issa, as well as an unnamed woman and her dog. It’s a pity the Hunters didn’t wipe out the whole disgusting Caravan Park. It is still there, a hideous blot on the landscape that has requisitioned Traeth Llydan as its own ‘private beach’ (named with colonial arrogance and contempt ‘Silver Bay’) and continually expands with more ‘luxury’ chalets and concrete roads without bothering to obtain planning permission in this supposedly protected environment. Pathetic Ynys Môn Council just quivered in fear for years before Plaid Cymru at last gained control in 2022 – but the ‘Party of Wales’ has so far failed to bring owners Bulmer Leisure to heel.

■On a private flight from Southend-on-Sea in England to RAF Valley, an American-made twin-engine Piper Comanche, being flown by its owner/pilot, collided with the lethal north-east flanks of Yr Wyddfa. Basic navigational errors killed pilot Robert Powl and his four passengers (names never released).

1973
■On July 5th a mortifying blunder by ground staff at RAF Valley saw a Beagle Bassett’s fuel tanks being incorrectly filled with jet fuel instead of petrol. Both engines of the light transport plane almost immediately failed after take off and it crashed into a stone animal enclosure near Bodorgan Station on the mainline railway to Caergybi, killing navigator Peter Lane. The other two men on board survived. The Senior Aircraftman in charge of fuelling the plane was dismissed from the RAF.

1975
■Very little is known about the fatal crash of a private Fuji 200 light aircraft near Port Talbot on September 8th, except that the two people on board both died. Japanese company Fuji, formed in 1953, changed its name to Subaru in 2017.

1976
■A single-seat Hunter being flown by a pilot from the Singapore Air Force crashed shortly after take off from Haverfordwest airfield, killing Leong Lim.

■On April 24th a Piper Cherokee crashed at Black Park after taking off from a private airstrip at Chirk (Y Waun) in Denbighshire. The Piper was destroyed and two of the three occupants died, but the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) did not feel obliged to give details.

■Four people were killed in ridiculous circumstances on April 30th. RAF Valley was holding an indulgent and entirely unnecessary formation flying tribute to a retiring squadron commander (couldn’t he have made do with a carriage clock?) when two of the Folland Gnats that were among the many planes involved collided over Brithdir east of Dolgellau. Apparently the men on one of the Gnats were busy concentrating on getting a better look at a swanky McDonnell Douglas Phantom in the formation when their plane struck the underside of the other Gnat. Fortunately nobody on the ground was killed, just the airmen: Kenneth Ivell, David Mather, Ian Sanford and David Keiffer. Chocks away!

■RNAS Brawdy had become RAF Brawdy once more when the RAF took back control in 1974. On May 4th one of the Hawker Hunters stationed there crashed near Capel Seion, east of Aberystwyth, after pilot W Irvine lost control in low cloud. He managed to eject from the aeroplane, but was a little late, hit the ground too hard and died.

■Gerry Hill, owner of a Volkswagen garage in Aberdâr, was keen on all forms of transport. He owned and piloted a Hughes helicopter and had his own helipad at his Gelli Uchaf Farm home near Llwydcoed. He, and an unnamed passenger, were both killed on June 14th when the helicopter crashed into high ground after take off.

■For reasons never established, a Hunter from RAF Brawdy came down 30 miles out in the Irish Sea on August 16th, killing solo pilot R Sutcliffe.

1977
■Over 400 Auster light aircraft were built between 1945 and 1952 at the company’s Leicestershire factory, so there were plenty of the quirky, high-wing, three-seat touring planes still in use by hobby flyers in the 1970s. On August 23rd, one such crashed while landing at a short-lived private airstrip in Tredegar (at Parc Bryn Bach), killing the two men on board (names unknown).

■During this period, the RAF tested quite a few F-111 Aardvarks, built by General Dynamics in the USA. On October 31st, an Aardvark from RAF Upper Heyford was on a night-time low-level training flight over Wales when it hit the ground at Pentre Bach Farm (still there) in hilly topography near the confluence of the Afon Twrch and the Afon Banwy in Montgomeryshire. The two men on board, pilot John Sweeney and William Smart, both died.

1978
■On April 10th owner/pilot Alan Langdon set off from Exeter Airport in a Gardan Horizon, a French-made touring aircraft for the leisured wealthy. Langdon’s destination was not known – but wherever he was going, he didn’t get there. The plane ditched into the sea off Porthcawl and he was killed.

1979
■The anonymous solo pilot of a privately-owned Grumman Cheetah died when he flew the plane into the steep slopes of Pen-yr-eryr mountain west of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog in Denbighshire on March 30th.

■The Cessna Super Skymaster, an enlarged version of the ordinary Cessna, was a must-have status-symbol for the sort of insecure fool who believes possessions make him envied and admirable. Flying between Coventry Airport and the Isle of Man on June 8th, a chartered Cessna encountered thick mist and suddenly came face to face with the imposing cliffs of Moel Siabod near the wettest place in Wales, Capel Curig in Eryri. Pilot Victor Wilson and his five passengers, Christopher Fletcher, Thomas Greenan, Joseph Gregory, Rodney Gregory and Thomas Hood, all died. The inquiry explicitly blamed Wilson for the disaster – he had veered well away from the planned flight path and failed to climb to a safe altitude in cloud.

■On November 13th the solo pilot of a Hughes Helicopter took a huge risk by taking off from the deep valley of the Afon Conwy near Betws-y-Coed, surrounded by sheer, forest-covered peaks. The risk didn’t pay off, the aircraft struck trees and crash-landed. The pilot, who was never named, wasn’t wearing his protective helmet and died from a fractured skull. The inquiry found that the helicopter’s spark plugs were filthy, not having been serviced in 120 hours of flying time – a fundamental negligence that made it 25% under-powered.

1980
■Pilot/owner Francis Willinger was taking three children on a ‘joy ride’ from Swansea Airport on behalf of Swansea Rotary Club when the engine of his Jodel failed during take off (the fuel selector had been wrongly set to a tank that was empty). The plane hit a tree as it came down, fatally injuring Willinger, whereas the children got away with some minor scratches.

■On August 2nd a privately-owned Airspeed Ambassador, manufactured over 30 years previously, crashed into the sea off Llandudno while on a journey from the Isle of Man to Kent. Pilot/owner John Spiers, his step-son and his friend drowned. His wife and mother of their child, Carole Spiers, wealthy inheritor of the estate of painter L S Lowry (1887-1976), was rescued.

1982
■A Hawker Siddeley Harrier (the first UK-made aircraft with vertical take off capability) was on an undisclosed military mission from RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire when the solo pilot lost control in cloud over the Berwyn Range. The plane crashed into Cadair Berwyn itself, killing US Navy pilot John Macbeth.

■On July 28th, the Cold Air Unit of a BAE Hawk training jet from RAF Valley failed, releasing noxious fumes into the cockpit. The emergency oxygen supply was activated and the pilot and his trainee returned to Valley. But the student pilot found he couldn’t breathe and removed his mask. Distracted by his distress, the instructor accidentally stalled the aircraft as it approached base and so had to activate their ejector seats above the airfield. As the Hawk rolled over alarmingly, the men executed a dangerously low-level drop. Instructor N Demery, although badly injured, survived; but trainee pilot Paul Gay did not.

1983
■The pilot of a Westland Gazelle helicopter from RAF Shawbury, on a training flight with one trainee pilot learning the ropes, did a very stupid thing while flying over the mountains of Eryri on April 20th. Noticing some school children at Bethania in the Nantgwynant valley, towered over by Yr Wyddfa, he decided to show off with an unauthorised low flypast, completely disregarding safety or common sense. He couldn’t recover altitude and the Gazelle hit the soaring cliffs of Gallt y Wenallt and shattered to smithereens near Llyn Teyrn, killing both men. Maybe to save the pilot’s reputation and avoid unfavourable publicity, the RAF never released his name.

■On October 6th the pilot of a privately-owned Piper Cherokee flying from Cardiff Airport (name changed from Rhoose in 1978) to Dublin Airport with three passengers on board, made a big mistake by flying too low in poor visibility over Mynydd Preseli. The plane crashed into the eastern flank of Carn Goedog south of Brynberian and all four died (names never made public).

1985
■A BAE Systems Hawk trainer aircraft from RAF Chivenor was crippled by aileron malfunction over Swansea Bay on January 30th. Solo pilot Guy Ward, although he managed to eject, sank like a stone on hitting the water and drowned. His body was never found.

1986
■The Rand KR-2 was a tiny single-seat ‘sport’ aircraft made from wood, polyurethane foam, fibreglass and glue that could be assembled at home by strange men with far too much time on their hands. An anonymous owner/pilot took off from Swansea Airport in one of these dubious contraptions on June 15th, and paid with his life. After less than an hour in the air, his attempt to land back at Swansea was stymied by priority being given to a Cessna’s emergency landing – a delay that was enough to see the Rand nosedive vertically into a field a couple of miles away at Crofty, killing the pilot.

■A USAAF Phantom from RAF Alconbury in Huntingdonshire – one of the many bases in the UK used by the US – crashed into the sea at Newgale when appearing at one of RAF Brawdy’s deeply offensive militaristic jamborees. The two Americans on board both died.

1987
■On May 10th a privately-owned Jodel crashed after taking off from an unofficial airfield near the scattered hamlet of Llangwnnadl in a peaceful corner of Llŷn. The owner/pilot and his passenger (neither identified) both died. The accident report identified engine failure caused by a faulty fuel cock as the culprit.

■Pilot Ian Hill died after he ejected too late from his SEPECAT Jaguar (a joint UK/France project) having lost control of the attack jet in the otherwise tranquil Afon Gwy valley during a strident, intrusive war-game with a couple of other Jaguars. The plane crashed near Aberedw at Ogof Llywelyn, where immortal Welsh freedom-fighter Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (c1223-1282) had spent his last night before he was killed by the army of English thug Edward I (1239-1307) at Cilmeri .

■A typically bombastic, disrespectful display of RAF hooliganism in Wales brought death and destruction on August 26th. Three McDonnell Douglas Phantoms were conducting highly disruptive low-level interception practice in Ceredigion when one flew into Pant-y-gwair in lovely countryside near Trefenter. Pilot Ewan Murdoch and navigator Jeremy Lindsey both died.

1988
■The Slingsby Swallow glider, made in Yorkshire, was popular during the post-War gliding craze that petered out by the 21st century. On July 3rd, G Balshaw of Bryngwyn Bach in Llanelli tried launching his Swallow with a winch from the edge of a small disused quarry behind his house. It didn’t work. The plywood aircraft spun into the quarry wall and Mr Balshaw was killed.

1989
■Three Hawks from RAF Valley were taking part in manoeuvres when two of them collided 10,000 feet above Borth on the Ceredigion coast. One crashed further inland in hills south of Machynlleth and its pilot ejected safely, but the other Hawk’s pilot, Simon Tompkins, didn’t eject at all and he and his plane were obliterated in the dreamy Afon Clarach valley north of Aberystwyth.

■Shortly after take off from RAF Brawdy, the pilot of a Hawk noticed a low oil pressure warning light and promptly returned to base. But the final approach was executed poorly and the aircraft crashed short of the runway, killing the two-man crew of John Duggan and Alan Taylor. Investigators later discovered that the warning light was faulty and the oil pressure had been fine.

1990
■The ‘Cold War’ was coming to an end, bringing long overdue reductions in airfields, flying hours and military accidents. The USA, encouraged by successive British governments to view the UK as its personal airstrip (it’s known as the ‘special relationship’), only reluctantly and gradually began to demilitarise in Europe. Another example of America’s bone-marrow militaristic disdain came on February 7th. A USAAF Fairchild Thunderbolt from RAF Alconbury was on a pointless and self justifying low-flying exercise over Wales when solo pilot Robert Burrowes crashed into the summit of Tarren yr Esgob above the divine Vale of Ewyas in Powys and was killed in the impact. Because of the UK government’s 1986 Protection of Military Remains Act – some red meat for Tory hawks to chew on – the awful. meaningless wreckage of the Thunderbolt is still scattered far and wide across the mountain, a preposterous reminder of an American’s inability to fly at a sensible altitude and properly assess weather conditions.

■The Huntair Pathfinder, a microlight aircraft with a precarious open-air seat, found buyers among grease monkeys who took James Bond films seriously. The unnamed pilot of one was killed when it crashed and caught fire at Chirk airfield on April 21st.

■On August 4th, a Polish-made Puchacz glider stalled and crash-landed on a private gliding field at Gwernesni near Usk. The pilot, name unknown, was killed. The facility still exists and is now Usk Gliding Club.

1991
■A Cessna Skyline light aircraft, owned by the ‘City Flying Group’, was flying from Teesside Airport (Durham) to Swansea Airport when it hit Moel Morfydd in the Clwydian Range north-east of Llangollen. The plane disintegrated and caught fire and all three occupants died. A long-winded investigation failed to pinpoint the cause of the accident.

■Carno, a village on the A470 in the centre of Wales, was shell-shocked by a frightening fiasco on August 29th. The solo pilot of a Cessna owned by Skyviews Limited, a company that specialised in taking aerial photographs of houses and then trying to sell them to the home-owners (a business model that tech like Google Earth has thankfully rendered obsolete) had been taking photos and circling over Carno for more than an hour when, all of a sudden, a Jaguar on a low-flying exercise from RAF Coltishall in Norfolk appeared from out of nowhere and instantly obliterated the Cessna and its incompetent pilot, who hadn’t bothered to notify the CAA of his low-level flying. The Jaguar continued on its trajectory as its wings fell off, and great chunks of it crashed into Trawscoed Farm (still operating today), severely damaging the farmhouse, its outbuildings and garden, while more debris hit the roofs of four houses in Carno and was hurled across farmland. Where the Jaguar fuselage came to rest it exploded and caused a widespread ground fire that burnt crops, arable fields, fencing and trees and killed 12 sheep and two cats. Both the Jaguar crew (kept anonymous by the RAF) had ejected but one couldn’t detach himself from his seat and died while the other was seriously injured but survived.

1993
■On August 12th the tail rotor of a Westland Wessex from RAF Valley failed. The helicopter crashed into Llyn Padarn in Gwynedd killing three teenage Air Training Corps cadets – Christopher Bailey, Mark Oakden and Amanda Whitehead. Another cadet on board and the crew of three were all injured but survived.

■A De Havilland Chipmunk from RAF St Athan was being used for an ‘air experience’ flight when the pilot, attempting to demonstrate a forced landing following an emergency, badly mishandled the exercise and turned it into a real emergency as the plane stalled and hit the runway adjacent to some hangars. The pilot (unnamed) died in the impact while his passenger survived.

■A privately-hired Robinson helicopter went missing on a navigation exercise between Bristol and Llandeilo on November 20th. The following day the wreckage was located on Allt Lwyd, a striking, forest-girdled Bannau Brycheiniog mountain west of Talybont Reservoir (created in 1939 to supply water to Newport). The solo pilot died on the snow-capped peak.

1994
■A Bell JetRanger helicopter operated by Petrochemical Supplies Ltd crashed on May 22nd, killing three of the four on board. Flying from Ynys Môn to Birmingham, it hit Moel Goch, a low hill in the ethereal moors west of Gwytherin in Clwyd, and caught fire. The pilot had been flummoxed by a patch of low cloud. None of the deceased were named.

■As the plane was never recovered, the AAIB could only speculate why an Irish-owned Cessna Skylark crashed into the Irish Sea 15 miles north of Ynys Môn while journeying from Guernsey to the Isle of Man, killing both unnamed occupants. Running out of juice was the AAIB’s best guess.

1995
■The anonymous solo pilot of a Schempp-Hirth Cirrus glider died after a botched take off from a field at Talgarth, Bannau Brycheiniog, on June 12th. During the aero-tow that gliders require to get off the ground, the left aileron broke. The Cirrus spun away out of control and crashed into trees.

■A microlight Aerial Arts Chaser with just the pilot/owner on board was on a pleasure flight from Chester to Caernarfon and back, accompanied by another microlight, when it came down on Glan-y-môr Elias beach, an inter-tidal mix of sand, shingle and mud near Llanfairfechan, Conwy. The anonymous flying enthusiast died and again no reason for the crash was discovered.

■Grob Viking gliders are still used by the RAF to give basic glider training to air cadets. On August 5th two Vikings touched wing tips while soaring above RAF Sealand. One of them crashed near a bleak industrial estate adjacent to the runway, killing instructor Fred Seeckts and teenage cadet Leigh Alderson, on only her second ever flying trip. The instructor and cadet on the other Viking survived their terrifying descent with serious injuries. RAF Sealand is now MOD Sealand, procuring and supplying equipment to all three of the armed services.

■On October 5th a Westland Gazelle from RNAS Culdrose flew into high tension power cables and caught fire at Livox Quarry north of Chepstow. The helicopter plunged into the Afon Gwy, killing instructor Tim Gay and his pupil Guy Chapman. The deep quarry, a source of limestone and road aggregate, closed in 2013 and soon filled with water. For a while it was used for diving and water activities, now there are plans to turn it into an underwater habitat preparing humans for the drowned planet of the future. The simpler option of tackling global warming and sea-level rise is, of course, out of the question.

1996
■Taking off from RAF Valley, a Hawk immediately went into an uncontrollable roll (caused by a disconnected aileron). Pilot Simon Burgess ejected, but the parachute didn’t have time to open properly and he was killed.

■On July 17th a private Mainair Gemini Flash – a microlight aircraft for the dedicated hobby flyer – took off from a field at Rhuallt a couple of miles east of Llanelwy in Denbighshire. In perfect weather, all seemed well for the owner/pilot, who had just fitted a new propeller – until people on the ground heard a loud crack and the plane broke up as it spiralled to the ground, killing the unnamed man.

1997
■A 43-year-old De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane was on a recreational jaunt from Cardiff Airport when, shortly after take off from one of the outlying runways, it started twisting and yawing and came down in a field just beyond the airfield’s perimeter. The badly injured passenger survived, but owner/pilot David Jenkins died of his injuries in hospital three months later.

1998
■On May 23rd the two occupants of a Cessna belonging to the Leicester Aero Club, flying from Leicester to Blackpool, became hopelessly confused thanks to their lack of navigation skills and got lost in the worst location possible: the mountains of Eryri. The tiny Cessna met the awesome rock wall of Tryfan, and there was only going to be one outcome: both men (names unknown) died.

1999
■Welshpool Airport began in 1990 as a grass strip on the dairy farm of Bob Jones (1951-2012), a flying fanatic if ever there was one. Thanks to Jones’ ceaseless work and enthusiasm it has become an important asset for mid-Wales as well as a base for the Wales Air Ambulance. On February 12th a Cessna Skyhawk with three people on board took off from Welshpool (Y Trallwng) but never returned. In thick cloud it flew into the steep flanks of Moel Sych, in the glorious Berwyn Range above Llyn Lluncaws, and pilot Gareth Newton, instructor Stephen Mole and passenger Fiona McWilliam were all killed.

■Caernarfon Airport obtained its operating license from the CAA in 1976. On August 2nd a Piper Apache on a test flight from the Airport flew into Moel Hebog, one of Eryri’s formidable fortresses, and the unnamed solo pilot died.

2000
■Returning to Swansea Airport after a uneventful flight to Wolverhampton earlier in the day, the solo pilot of a Jodel lost control in cloudy conditions and died when the plane crashed in the western Bannau Brycheiniog area. Neither his name nor the precise location of the accident are known.

2002
■On April 1st, a Piper Tomahawk owned by Cardiff Flying Club (based at Cardiff Airport) set off on a recreational excursion with two people on board. All was going well until the aircraft hit one of the electricity pylons that march across the top of Mynydd Maen overlooking Cwmbrân in Gwent. The impact destroyed the plane and Kevin Mansbridge and Gerald Prangley were fatally injured.

2005
■After a privately-owned Piper Archer, returning to Cardiff Airport from a touring holiday in Ireland, went missing from the radar near the Welsh coast on September 4th a full search and rescue operation was launched. Lifeboats eventually found wreckage and the bodies of Cowbridge husband and wife Edward and Caroline Reilly in the sea seven miles west of Pen Caer. The AAIB report suggested an inadvertent switch from visual control to instrument control had caused spatial disorientation.

2006
■On September 11th a Cessna Aerobat owned by the Herefordshire Aero Club was returning home from Caernarfon Airport after a leisure trip over Wales. It entered low cloud after just 10 minutes in the air and struck Moelyci above the Afon Ogwen valley at Bethesda, seriously injuring the pilot and fatally injuring the passenger (names not divulged).

2007
■Returning from Cornwall to a private airstrip at Upfield Farm (now called Newport City Aerodrome), a Europa kit plane crashed into a field at nearby Undy (Gwndy) on June 1st. Witnesses on the ground saw the aircraft literally fall apart in mid-air. Consequently, Europa upgraded their product. The pilot and the passenger, both unnamed, died in the impact.

2009
■The German-made Grob Tutor is a small training aircraft widely used by the UK armed forces as well as universities and air experience organisations. Welsh universities have had their own squadron since 1963, based at MOD St Athan (the former RAF St Athan). On February 11th, two University of Wales Grob Tutors from St Athan were involved in a mid-air collision that killed both their RAF pilots (Andrew Marsh and Hylton Price) and also both the cadet trainees (cousins 14-year-old Katie Davies and 13-year-old Nikitta Walters). The planes crash-landed near Porthcawl. The AAIB report concluded that the two aircraft simply failed to see each other because their canopy structure blocked sight-lines and, after all, Grobs are pretty inconspicuous anyway. I wonder if that feeble explanation satisfied the children’s parents…

2011
■On March 13th a Jodel owned by a syndicate of seven people took off from Cardiff Airport with two on board, intending to fly to Haverfordwest and back. Over Swansea the aircraft lost power and the pilot attempted a forced landing. But he overshot the selected field near Pontlliw, clipped the top of some trees and then struck a power cable. The Jodel flipped over and hit the ground upside down, fatally injuring the pilot while the co-pilot escaped with serious injuries (neither were identified).

2012
■Based at Welshpool Airport, Awyr Cymru was one of a number of attempts to establish a Welsh airline. It lasted from 1995-2014, failing like the others for want of capital, investment, public awareness and a supportive national framework. On January 18th an Awyr Cymru Piper Navajo with two men on board had been put through its paces in a familiarisation exercise around Welshpool and was preparing to land when it struck cloud-concealed trees on the wooded slopes of Cefn Digoll (Long Mountain) near Tre’r Llai above the east bank of the Afon Hafren. Pilot Bob Jones (see 1999 above) and his unnamed colleague died in the impact and the resulting fire.

2013
■A Piper Cherokee light aircraft operated by Fly Blackpool flipped over on landing at Caernarfon Airport and ended upside down in a gorse bush. One of the three occupants died, the other two were badly injured.

■On November 15th a Cessna on a private flight from France pitched, rolled and then crashed on landing at Hawarden Airport. Both occupants died: pilot/owner Mr Vickers and passenger Kaye Clarke. The Cessna had suffered from ‘fuel starvation’, caused by mismanagement of the fuel system.

2014
■Trying to lift off from Caernarfon Airport on May 15th, a microlight Mainair Gemini crashed onto the runway, killing owner/pilot Ashley Hazlewood. The 61-year-old from Rhyl had got the banking angle all wrong.

2016
■The Evektor Aerotechnik Eurostar, a light ‘sports’ aircraft manufactured in the Czech Republic, is one of many planes now made for private flyers wealthy enough to avoid the horrors of mass-transit commercial airlines and the hell of rammed to the rafters big airports. The ‘glamour’ of air travel is now but a distant memory and extreme over-tourism has made globe-trotting a ghastly experience. Travelling from an airstrip in Cheshire to Swansea, a Eurostar suffered structural failure over Wales to such an extent that one wing folded back on itself. The plane dropped nose-up to the ground, spinning crazily into a field at Fforddlas Farm a mile north of the Royal Welsh Showground at Llanelwedd. Both the unnamed occupants were killed. Blame was attributed to structural overload triggered by an unsuitable manoeuvre.

2017
■An Airbus Ecureuil helicopter was flying from a private airstrip in Bedfordshire to one in Dublin on March 29th when it brushed the south-east face of rugged Rhinog Fawr in Eryri. Pilot Kevin Burke, his two brothers Barry and Donald, his wife Ruth and Donald’s wide Sharon were all killed. The mistake was simple: the chopper was flying below a safe height.

■After taking off from a private airstrip in Cheshire the solo pilot of a Piper Navajo reported control problems and diverted to Caernarfon Airport instead of continuing to the planned destination of an ‘executive’ airfield in Ireland. At high speed, the Navajo slammed into a runway at Caernarfon and was destroyed in a ball of fire, killing the anonymous pilot. The elevator trim had been in the wrong position, making control of the plane virtually impossible.

2018
■On March 20th a Hawk belonging to the RAF’s ‘Red Arrows’ aerobatics team was on a training exercise at RAF Valley. The training consisted of practising how to respond in the event of engine failure after take off. Well, the engine failure duly happened but the response was lacking: the Hawk crashed into the runway and caught fire. Pilot David Stark ejected on time and survived but engineer Jonathan Bayliss was killed.

■A private Grob light aircraft flying from Usk airfield collided with a tree trunk at Tre’r-gaer a mile north of Rhaglan in Gwent while practising field landing. The two men on board had simply not seen the tree. Both Martin Bishop and Roderick Weaver were killed.

2019
■The solo pilot of a Rolladen-Schneider glider undertook a demanding flight into the mountains of Eryri from an airfield at Talgarth in Powys on May 4th. The unnamed man was having a great time riding the air currents and taking lots of no doubt spectacular photos on his mobile phone when he had a heart attack and died with his goggles on, so to speak. The glider came down three miles south of Blaenau Ffestiniog.

■The gliding field at Gwernesni was now called the South Wales Gliding Club. On July 27th a Schempp-Hirth glider’s tailplane detached during the tow. Desperate signals from the ground to abort the flight were not noticed by the glider pilot or the aerotow tug pilot. Observers could only watch in horror as the glider was released and instantly crashed, killing pilot Steve Evans. The tailplane had been mis-rigged.

■On November 25th a private Cessna Skyhawk, flying from Caernarfon Airport, was being taken on a short flight to “Great Orme and back” by the 79-year-old pilot. Quite soon air traffic control could get no response and eventually search and rescue teams found debris floating in the sea near Ynys Seiriol. A month later an underwater diving team found the body of David Last from Llanfairfechan, a professor emeritus of Bangor University.

2025
■At the time of writing this in September 2025 the death of Professor Last was, believe it or not, the last fatal plane crash in Wales. There has not been a fatality for nearly six years – the longest such period since the 13 years between 1918 and 1931. The reasons for this enormous decline are clear: sophisticated meteorological, air traffic control, navigation and communication systems that have all but eliminated the perils of bad weather, the possibility of mid-air collisions and the chances of getting lost or flying into high ground; tighter international and national rules and regulations covering aircraft construction and maintenance, pilot qualification, traffic management, security systems and enhanced safety checks; the transformed training of crews conducted by highly advanced flight simulators and strict protocols rather than the real-time, ‘on the joystick’ training of old; and the change in military techniques and practices away from manned planes and on-the-spot bombing to unmanned drones and long-distance missiles, causing the RAF to shift priorities from hosts of costly air-bases and hangars packed with aircraft to high-tech warfare conducted by a handful of people on their laptops. War is now big business and the economies of many countries (particularly the UK) depend on the development and sale of lethal weapons.

The aeroplane is easily the safest mode of transport with a fatality rate of 0.003% compared to the 0.27% of trains and the 2.57% of automobiles. There are just two downsides to air travel: firstly, when the very rare accidents do happen, they are much more likely to be fatal than other ways of travelling; and secondly, the immense environmental damage. Aircraft account for 2.5% of carbon emissions and uncalculated quantities of nitrogen oxides, water vapour and particulates, plus immense noise pollution, air pollution, water pollution, habitat destruction and land usage. The booming private jet industry is particularly damaging, despite serving only 250,000 people (0.002% of the global population). Half the journeys cover short distances of under 200 miles and many flights carry no passengers at all as they are simply repositioning to pick up the next over-entitled millionaire. Now the appalling Labour government in Westminster is ditching every hint of ‘green’ policy and going for perpetual growth for growth’s sake to please big business and City of London financiers, for want of the intellect, values and decency to create a serious, sustainable, sane economy for all people. The wholesale abandonment of environmental protection and the major expansion of at least eight airports is planned. Fasten your seatbelts; things can only get worse.

APPENDIX: SUMMARY OF THE MILITARY AIRFIELDS AND BASES OF WALES
RAF spelling used
●RAF Aberporth – opened 1940, closed 1946; became RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) Aberporth in 1951, amalgamating with the adjacent MOD Aberporth firing range (opened 1940), and expanding into a missile-testing and rocket-launching site under MOD control. Now it is called Parc Aberporth, mainly used for testing unmanned drones, firing rockets and weapons research. The remaining, privately-owned airfield has been named West Wales Airport.
●RAF Angle – opened 1941, closed 1946; for five months in 1943 it was transferred to the Royal Navy and called RNAS Angle, before it returned to RAF control. Today few traces of the airfield are left and it is once again farmland.
●RAF Bangor – opened 1918, closed 1919; a rough landing area meant this airfield at Aberogwen had a very brief life. The site is now agricultural land and a wildlife haven.
●RAF Bodorgan – opened (as RAF Aberffraw) 1940, renamed 1941, closed 1945; very little remains of the airfield and it has reverted to agriculture.
●RAF Brawdy – opened 1944, transferred to the Fleet Air Arm in 1946 and renamed RNAS Brawdy then transferred back to the RAF in 1974 to become RAF Brawdy again; it was taken over by the Army in 1995, re-named Cawdor Barracks and repurposed as the British Army’s main electronic warfare base. Now the UK government plans to construct an incredibly expensive (austerity doesn’t exist when it comes to the military) deep space radar station at Brawdy, involving new roads, environmental carnage and the destruction of one of Wales’ most spectacular landscapes. War, as ever, is big business.
●RAF Carew Cheriton – opened 1939 (previously RNAS Milton during WW1), closed 1945; the runway that remains is used for miscellaneous events and Karting.
●RAF Dale – opened 1942, transferred to the Royal Navy to become RNAS Dale 1943, closed 1948; now farmland again, runways and concrete surfaces are still visible.
●RAF Fairwood Common – opened 1941 (unique Bronze Age barrows were destroyed in the process), closed 1949; after WW2 it became Swansea Airport in 1957 and was developed for commercial use by Cambrian Airways (founded 1935, incorporated into British Airways 1974). Now it’s mainly used by flying clubs and private aircraft.
●RAF Haverfordwest – opened 1942, closed 1945; also known as RAF Withybush, it replaced the adjacent short-lived RAF Rudbaxton (1941-1942). Bought by Pembrokeshire Council and re-opened in 1952, it is now called Haverfordwest Airport.
●RAF Hawarden – opened 1939, closed 1959; taken over by De Havilland, which became part of Hawker Siddeley and later British Aerospace, it became a centre for aircraft manufacture. Since 1977 Airbus UK has been based here and the airfield is now mostly used for chartered, corporate and specialist flights.
●RAF Kete – opened 1942 as a radar station, taken over by the Royal Navy as RNAS Kete in 1943; in 1945 became a satellite of RNAS Dale, first as HMS Goldcrest then as HMS Harrier. Closed in 1961. Crumbling buildings and dumped rubbish have been left to rot on the site, now in the ‘care’ of the National Trust.
●RAF Llanbedr – opened 1941, closed 1957; subsequently became Royal Aerospace Establishment (RAE) Llanbedr until 1992, a research facility, then was run by private operators and used for weapons training before closing in 2004. Despite local opposition the Labour government in Cardiff re-opened it in 2014 as a civil aviation airfield, home to a flying school, gliding clubs from England and the ‘Aerospace Wales’ research company.
●RAF Llandow – opened 1940, closed 1957; a satellite airfield to RAF St Athan until 1960, the site has since been comprehensively developed into a massive industrial estate and motorsport and Karting circuits.
●RAF Llandwrog – opened 1941, closed 1946; used to store lethal chemical weapons in the open until 1954, when the deadly nerve agents were disposed of on scuttled ships in the sea west of Ireland. The airfield revived for private aircraft in 1969 in order to transport VIPs to the investiture of Charles Windsor at Caernarfon Castle and then was formally re-opened as Caernarfon Airport in 1976, concentrating on search and rescue helicopter operations and the Wales Air Ambulance service. From 1989 Caernarfon displayed the Pou-du-Ciel biplane built in 1936 by daredevil aerobatic trail-blazer Idwal Jones (1906-1937) from nearby Talysarn, who died when performing one of his amazing stunts at an air display at Doncaster, but the plane was snaffled for the Aeroplane Collection at Hooton Park in 1998.
●RAF Manorbier – opened 1933, closed 1946; initially a mixed civilian/military airfield, Manorbier passed into MOD ownership after WW2. In 1972 it became, and remains, a high velocity missile testing range for the British Army called Air Defence Range Manorbier, part of comprehensively militarised southern Pembrokeshire.
●RAF Mona – opened 1915 (as airship base RNAS Llangefni), closed 1920; used as an isolation hospital until re-opened as RAF Mona in 1941 and then closed again in 1945 at the end of WW2. In 1951 Mona was reborn once more as a satellite airfield for RAF Valley, a role which continues to this day.
●RAF Pembrey – opened 1939, closed 1957; in 1964 the 20 miles of coastline either side of the Tywi estuary were requisitioned as the Pembrey Sands Air Weapons Range, which remains the case to this day, rendering marvellous sandy beaches out of bounds most of the time. In 1997 the old airfield re-opened as a small civil airfield called Pembrey Airport and is now also home to the Welsh Motor Sports Centre.
●RAF Pembroke Dock – opened 1930, closed 1959; previously a Royal Naval Dockyard from 1814 to 1926, as an RAF base it was the famed home of seaplanes and ‘flying boats’. Much of the intriguing infrastructure of both the Dockyard and the RAF base has been swept away.
●RAF Pengam Moors – opened 1938, closed 1946; a private flying club called Splott Aerodrome from 1931 and then Cardiff Municipal Airport from 1932, after the RAF left it reverted to being Cardiff Airport until that was transferred to Rhoose in 1954. Housing, a supermarket that replaced a short-lived car factory, industrial units and a park now cover the area.
●RAF Penrhos – opened 1936, closed 1946; the grassed site now contains a caravan park, a golf driving range and a home for Polish ex-servicemen.
●RAF Rhoose – opened 1942, closed 1946; the airfield was briefly used for maintenance after WW2 before it closed for what seemed permanently in 1948. But in 1954 it became the base for Cambrian Airways and all civil flying was transferred from RAF Pengam Moors. Now, after continued expansion through phases as Cardiff Airport, Cardiff-Wales Airport and currently Cardiff International Airport, it is owned by the Welsh government and is inarguably Wales’ national airport.
●RAF St Athan – opened 1938, post WW2 used for training, maintenance, engineering and housing army units; became MOD St Athan in 2006 and £millions were wasted on land acquisition, new roads and plans that never came to fruition, now it is the site of an Aston Martin factory, the MOD has gone, the airfield has been transferred from military to civilian control, and in 2019 it was renamed Bro Tathan Airfield.
●RAF St David’s – opened 1943, closed 1992; in 1946 it was taken over by the Navy and became RNAS St David’s until 1971, a satellite of nearby RNAS Brawdy. Marked for closure, it came under RAF control again in 1974 and was used as a relief landing ground until at last being relinquished by the military and sold to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
●RAF Sealand – opened 1916 as a flying school then taken over in the same year by the new Royal Flying Corps and named RFC Shotwick (a nearby hamlet on the English side of the border), on the formation of the RAF in 1918 it became RAF Shotwick before finally being named the more geographically accurate RAF Sealand in 1924; it was a significant maintenance unit in the 1930s, a training centre through WW2, taken over by the US Air Force in 1951, and returned to the RAF in 1957. A major component of the UK’s defence systems ever since, in communications, repairs, maintenance and electronics, it became MOD Sealand in 2006, home to multiple high-tech facilities.
●RAF Stormy Down – opened 1939, closed 1947; today it is the location of limestone quarries, a cement factory, a food-waste anaerobic digester, solar panels and an energy park supplying electricity to Porthcawl.
●RAF Talbenny – opened 1942, closed 1946; post-war the Ministry of Agriculture used the huts to house seasonal harvest labourers, then motor-racing and rallycross was tried, now nearly all the infrastructure has gone and the land has returned to farming.
●RAF Templeton – open 1942, closed 1945; used by the Royal Marines as a holiday camp until sold in 1960 and leased back to the MOD. Now called Templeton Dry Training Area, it is part of the MOD’s vast Defence Training Estate in Pembrokeshire.
●RAF Towyn – opened 1940, closed 1945; occasionally used by the Army as ‘Morfa Camp’, now a solar farm occupies part of the otherwise empty grassland.
●RAF Valley – opened 1941, still operating; a major fighter base during WW2, Valley was then developed into one of the RAF’s principal training centres and remains one of the busiest airfields in the UK.
●RAF Wrexham – opened 1917 (as RFC Wrexham), closed 1920; re-opened 1941, closed 1945; gravel quarrying subsequently obliterated the airfield.
●Others – short-lived RAF Gliding Schools were established during WW2 at Abergavenny, Bridgend, Llanishen, Merthyr Tydfil, Pennard, Tal-y-Cafn and Newport; likewise, satellite landing-grounds briefly existed at Chepstow Racecourse, Flimston Down and St Brides Major.  

SOURCES/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Air Accidents Investigation Branch; Air-britain.com; Aviation Safety Network; Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archive; Dyfed Archaeological Trust; Glamorgan/Gwent Archaeological Trust; Military Aircraft Accidents UK; Peak District Air Accident Research; People’s Collection Wales; R Cawsey.co.uk