THE AIRMAN’s GRAVE
The combined bulk of Minera, Esclusham and Ruabon Mountains could be described as an aeroplane graveyard, accounting for no less than 12 during the war years, with the loss of 15 pilots and aircrew. They were four Spitfires, two of them flying formation in cloud, a Hurricane on a delivery flight, a Miles Master trainer, a Miles Martinet target tug, a Royal Navy Fairey Fulmar fighter, a Mustang from the fighter Operational Training Unit at Rednal, Shropshire a Bristol Beaufighter on a ferry flight from the factory at Weston-Super-Mare to RAF Kirkbride in what was then Cumberland, an Airspeed Oxford at World’s End and an Avro Anson navigation trainer near Garth.
Visible on Google Earth and marked as ‘Airmen’s Monument’, is a horizontal three metre long cross of stones. On various Facebook pages it is referred to as ‘The Airman’s Grave’, along with speculation as to which aircraft is involved. The favourite is ‘a Beaufighter with a Polish pilot’. A Beaufighter, in fact, crashed several hundred yards away on 3 November, 1943. The pilot, Flight Sergeant John Shepherd, was delivering a new aircraft destined for a Strike Wing based at RAF Dallachy in NE Scotland for attacks on German shipping along the Norwegian coast.
The only Polish casualty was Flight Sergeant W A Jarosz returning in a Miles Martinet from Rednal in Shropshire to Hawarden. By coincidence, on the same date as the Beaufighter loss, but he came to grief in deteriorating weather further down the mountain to the west. So it would appear that the cross is not sited on an actual crash site, but on a patch of grass conveniently close to the intersection of two paths. Virtually all of this upland is covered with heather, which makes it very difficult to find the sparse metal debris left by the wartime RAF salvage crews. Until the advent of GPS, quoted map refs on this featureless moorland were approximate, to say the least.
A further complication is an online report of Spitfire wreckage 15 yards from the cross, believed to be from an aircraft flown by Sergeant Cyril Cocks from the fighter training unit at Hawarden on 16 November, 1941. Trampling around in the dense heather, we failed to find any traces. Judging by Google Earth’s historical imagery, the cross has been there for at least 20 years. Many of the rocks forming it are quite large and must have been carried several hundred yards from the nearest stony outcrop.
Reflecting on the mix of facts, conjecture and rumour, Google Earth’s title ‘The Airmen’s Monument’ seems entirely appropriate in commemorating all the airmen who perished on this high ground, rather than a single incident. It is certainly not a grave, as all the airmen involved are interred elsewhere. The moorland is beautiful with colourful heather and gorse on a summer’s day, but became a trap for the unwary flier when the weather closed in.
PHOTOS:
The Airman’s Grave.
Down the track towards World’s End.