Eyewitness accounts of the accident

We would be very interested to hear from anyone with any knowledge of this, even if it is secondhand, perhaps from an old diary. Photos are very welcome.

Artist's sketch of the crash scene. Image copyright Roderick Joyce 2013.

Alan Warne

This account was recently provided to us by Alan Warne, whose father Joseph was one of the few people to see the aircraft impact.

I remember when I was a child, my father Joseph Warne, telling me that he saw an aircraft crashing in flames into Roscroggan chapel and that an engine was on fire.

He had left school at 15 years of age to work for a farmer called Frank Butler at Roscroggan. At the time of the incident, my father was working in the fields just below Mount Whistle road and saw the crash happen - right before his eyes. My father never forgot what happened that day. At the age of 19, he volunteered to go to Korea, joining the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry.

As far as we're aware, Joseph was the only eyewitness to see flames from an engine. However, according to the RAF's Air History Branch, some of the other eyewitnesses did see smoke from an engine. The fire would have spread by the time of impact, when Joseph saw it.

Frank Carlyon

Frank Carlyon was born in 1937 and has always lived in Falmouth. Being around the age of five at the time, he recalls travelling by car with his father to visit his aunt and thinks that it was most likely a Sunday morning. His aunt was a patient at Tehidy Tuberculosis Sanatorium, a few minutes drive from the crash site.

Mr Carlyon believes that his father stopped to look at the damage to the chapel. "The weather must have been good or else I wouldn't have been allowed out of the car" he suggests. Looking at the chapel from the gateway, Mr Carlyon remembers the ruins; "Still steaming and smoking from the wreckage and rubble". He has a distinct memory of seeing what appeared to be a pedal assembly lying on the ground between the gate and what remained of the chapel and that there were items which he believes to be clothes and things caught in the trees behind him. He doesn't recall seeing anyone else during the unplanned stop nor does he have any recollection of seeing any wreckage of the aircraft itself.

While this isn't an account of the crash itself, it does show that the authorities had already gathered the evidence for the preliminary investigation as well as removing all the major pieces of wreckage within two days of the accident. It's impossible to know whether the pedals were from the pilot's flying controls or from the hydraulically-operated dorsal turret.

Ella Whear

This account is from Ivor Corkell's still unpublished work "Bombshell; Cornwall at war".

The worst memory I have of the war occurred on the early morning at 08:55 hrs July 24th 1942. At this time I was studying at the Commercial Secretarial School, Illogan Highway; Principal, Mr Harry Carveth. Just as I was ready to leave to cycle there with a friend, one of our planes, a Beaufort AW288 passed over our house, very low and losing height. My father remarked; "That's one of our boys, they are in trouble". We had an idea where they would come down so we jumped on our bikes and headed in that direction and in a few minutes we were there to witness a horrendous sight. Devastation all around, Roscroggan Chapel destroyed, the crashed plane but it was the sight of one of the aircrew trying to break the cockpit Perspex to get out and to no avail then slipping out of sight, that has been with me ever since. It was a joy on 24th July 2004 to attend a Service of Remembrance and Dedication of a Plaque at Roscroggan to know that their sacrifice was not in vain. May they "Rest in Peace".

Gordon Colin Tonkin

This account is also from Ivor Corkell's unpublished work "Bombshell; Cornwall at war".

I recall another foggy morning and overhead was an aircraft which even to our inexperienced ears was in trouble, with the engine noises rising and falling and then silent. By this time we were trained plane finders and were were off in hot pursuit. We rounded a corner on the top of the hill into Roscroggan and there was an inferno. The aircraft had come down and gone straight through the old chapel, which was full of boxes (the first flatpacks) for Bickford Smith, the fuse company. In the road amidst other wreckage was an engine with a body on top of it, both burning. I remember an old gentleman with one arm trying to put out the fire with a stirrup pump. He was having great difficulty keeping the pump in the bucket and I leapt in without thinking and grabbed the pump and held it down. I still remember the smell of burning aircraft and the body. There is a little crest there now reminding us of what happened there. I believe there were four airmen in the plane. There was a miracle that day as just on the opposite side of the road was an undamaged bungalow. This had since been demolished and been replaced by a nice new house built further down the plot. Some of the crash remains were taken up to our play area on the burrows above Enys Road and whilst we searched through the debris my elder brother found a florin and a few other coins. Knowing him he has possibly still kept them to this day.

Ivor Corkell

This account was sent to us by Ivor.

I was younger and my mother wouldn't allow me to go there until hours after the crash. By then a lot of the wreckage that had been on the road had been removed and there were uniformed people guarding everything. Ella remembers that the front of the plane was in the corner of the field opposite the chapel and on the left of the road from Camborne to Tehidy. My memories are of the wreckage down the lane alongside this field. There were a lot of trees on the hedges and they were full of wreckage, cloth, etc. Bits of the aircraft wreckage littered the sides of the lane and probably the lane itself originally. The two engines were in the road to Tehidy. The chapel had been hit as the plane headed north west and the front wall would have suffered badly. I can't recall the wings but as they were full of fuel perhaps they were destroyed. The front fuselage faced the road and stuck up clearly.

Phyllis Watts

This account is also from Ivor Corkell's unpublished "Bombshell; Cornwall at war" book. Interestingly this is the only account that mentions smoke being visible while the Beaufort was still airborne.

On the 24th July 1942 a plane passed over our house with black smoke coming from it. Mr Penwarden was delivering milk and Anne's father, Lacy, who was staying with us at the time, jumped onto the cart and together drove off to Roscroggan where the plane crashed.

Percy Laity

These accounts are from two interviews that Percy did for local newspapers in 2004. In the second interview he recalls large shells going off, which seems unlikely as the Beaufort was armed only with machineguns and not automatic cannon. It's possible that what he saw was the emergency flares igniting. Percy's is the only account that mentions the ammunition exploding although this statement is perfectly credible.

As I came out of the gate with the horse and cart there was a terrific bang up in front of me and I didn't know what it was. It went right through the chapel and into a little meadow. The wing just touched a bungalow and there was a mark on it, which remained for many years until the building was demolished. I definitely think the Pilot deserves a medal because he could have brought the plane down in Roskear - anywhere.

Recalling the incident, Mr Laity said he was working as an apprentice for a firm of stone masons when the crash happened.

"I was coming out of a gate down the road with a horse and cart to go and pick up some cement. I must have heard the noise first because I remember thinking; "What the hell was that?". I looked round and the plane came round right in front of me. There were bullets and large shells going off in the fire. You don't think about it in that particular moment, you just go in there and hope you can save somebody. I don't think we knew what danger we were in. If just one had hit us we would have been dead."