WWII Air Crash Detectives
Full Episode List
From 1939 to 1945 thousands of young airmen met terrible ends not at the hands the enemy’s machine guns or because of the murderous flak of anti-aircraft fire, but in catastrophic accidents and training crashes. Incredibly, these incidents accounted for the lives of over 8,000 men. All over the world training flights and cargo transport journeys all sometimes ended in disaster.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that, amid the weight of the human costs of the air war against Germany, these ‘hidden’ losses have been forgotten; but all the men in the aircraft which never returned signed up for the same war, and they were all someone’s father, brother or son. The same letters went home to every family.
Luckily, there are some who believe those brave men should not be a footnote in military history. They are the World War 2 air crash detectives and now, for the first time, they have agreed to let us join them.
Episode One - Lost & Confused: Sharp Top Mountain B-25 Crash
On a cold dark night in February, 1943, five trainees aboard a B-25 Mitchell Bomber struggle to find their bearings. Confused at their exact whereabouts the aircraft finally slams into Sharp Top Mountain high above the American town of Bedford in Virginia. It was the third training crash in the area that night – and the worse. What really caused this accident? Was it because of “Pilot Error”, equipment failure, bad weather, or could the mission have been doomed from the beginning? The official report stated the cause of the crash as ‘Unknown’, but in this episode we discover what really happened.
Episode Two - Sikorski’s Last Flight
4 July 1943 – 11:07pm a Liberator bomber from RAF Transport Command takes off from Gibraltar for England. On board is General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of Poland’s London-based government in exile and Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces, returning from visiting Polish troops in the Middle East. On take-off, the aircraft climbs normally from the runway, levels off to gather speed but then suddenly loses height and crashes into the harbour. The 62-year-old Polish general is killed, along with 15 others. The sole survivor is the Czech-born pilot, Eduard Prchal, who is rescued by an RAF launch. The bodies of five passengers and crew, including Sikorski’s daughter, are never found. This episode pieces together the events of that night, the cause of the crash and examines the murky world of WWII international espionage and the case for an assassination.
Episode Three - Baker’s Creek: Australia’ S Worst Crash
Bakers Creek, Australia, 14th June, 1943. For the men about to board “Miss Every Morning Fixin”, the pressures of the War had been eased by a period of rest and relaxation in Queensland, but they were about to return to war operations in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. They were never to return. The “Miss Every Morning Fixin”, a name derived from the amount of effort needed to keep it airworthy, was a beaten up old B-17 bomber that had been converted for transport use and had suffered a great deal of damage - including receiving over a thousand bullet holes - in a raid over the Philippines in 1941. Shortly after take-off the aircraft plunged into the ground killing everyone aboard - apart from one survivor, who would spend the rest of his life coping with the injuries he received that day. The death toll finally stood at 40 passengers and crew. This accident is still Australia’s worse ever plane crash and yet it was hushed up by the Australian and US governments until after the war had ended, with the relatives being told that those on board had perished in a crash over the South Pacific. Why was the truth suppressed, and why did the plane crash?
Episode Four - The Turweston Crash: Death In The Moonlight
In the early hours of 8th July 1944, a normally quiet part of rural Northamptonshire was a hive of activity as the 17 twinned engine Wellington bombers rumbled down the runway of their Turweston airfield home. With the Allied D-Day invasion having taken place the previous month, these young trainees were conducting a night-time flying exercise as part of their readiness to enter frontline bombing service for the RAF.
With a bright full moon lighting up his fellow circling bombers in the night’s sky, the Wellington of Pilot Officer Searles and his six strong crew took to the air. As they climbed into the inky darkness a fireball erupted. Searle’s Wellington had collided with another, and the two bombers crashed to the ground in flames. Both crews were killed instantly. 13 young men had died before their war had even begun… Garth Barnard strives to find out what caused the mid-air collision by reviewing eye-witness accounts, official reports, computer simulations and his own theories.
Episode Five - Conspiracy Or Confusion? Naper 28: Death On The Great Plains
August 3rd, 1944 – a C-47 transport plane, with a crew of four, is ferrying 24 trainee P-47 fighter pilots from the Bruning Army Air Field in Nebraska to the South Dakotan Pierre Army Air Field for advanced training. The pilot, Captain Stanley J Meadows, is forced to try and find a way through a wide storm front as the unique weather conditions found on the great plains of America conspire against him. After cloud dodging for almost an hour, Captain Meadow’s luck finally runs out and the plane is engulfed in a violent storm cloud, there is a lightning flash, and witnesses see the aircraft plummet to the ground killing all 28 passengers and crew onboard. Naper 28 as it became known is thought to be the worse single US plane crash of the War. The exact cause of the crash was never fully determined and several possibilities existed as to why the C-47 crashed.
Episode Six - The Duke Of Kent Crash
It is the 25th of August, 1942. A Short Sunderland Flying Boat slams into Eagle Rock, a remote hillside in the far north of Scotland, killing fourteen people on board. Miraculously, there is one survivor. But among the dead is His Royal Highness Prince George the Duke of Kent, the brother of King George VI. The official report into the crash cites pilot error as its cause – it was, according to the authorities, a tragic accident. This episode is tasked with getting at the truth behind the infamous Eagle Rock crash which claimed the life of the ‘Forgotten’ Prince – the Royal brother with the unfortunate lifestyle and inconvenient politics.
DVD Available next month
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