Around 1pm on the afternoon of December 12th, 1944, the people of Rhayader and district were surprised by the sight of a Handley-Page Halifax bomber emerging from the clouds above the town clearly in distress. The airplane was struggling to gain altitude and parts were falling off as it passed over the town. A short while later, at 1.03pm, the airplane crashed into the mountains at Penybwlch, to the west of Rhayader, witnessed by many residents of Rhayader and the surrounding district.
The plane in question was the Royal Canadian Air Force Halifax bomber LL541. It was flying a daytime training mission from its base at RAF Dishforth, Yorkshire. Its objective was to fly out to Cardigan Bay and then return to RAF Dishforth.
On that fateful flight LL541 had its seven regular crew members, plus an extra navigator. All 8 men were Canadians serving in the RCAF, namely;
Pilot Officer Gerald Lister (Pilot), aged 22.
Flying Officer Ernest Brautigam (Navigator), aged 19.
Flight Sergeant David Levine (Bomb Aimer), aged 23.
Flight Sergeant John Overland (Air Gunner), aged 19.
Flight Sergeant Grant Goehring (Air Gunner), aged 21.
Flight Sergeant James Preece (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner), aged 20.
Sergeant Frank Willmek (Flight Engineer), aged 23.
Flight Sergeant Allan McMurtry (Flight Engineer), aged 22.
More details about each of the men can be found here
F/Sgt McMurtry may have been the extra crew member flying with the crew of LL541 that day. In a letter from F/Sgt Goehring’s father to the authorities enquiring after the families of his son’s crewmates, all are mentioned apart from McMurtry suggesting he was not a regular crew member.
It is not known why Halifax LL541 lost control and crashed. It was suggested that the pilot may have suffered from oxygen deprivation and passed out, putting the plane into a dive which stressed the aircraft’s frame. He may have come around and tried to regain control but failed to clear the ridge to the west of Rhayader.
The aircraft came down heavily on the south side of Penybwlch hill, killing all on board. Three of the crew had managed to bale out before impact, but at an altitude too low for them to open their parachutes. They too perished.
The authorities were alerted by the local police and quickly attended the scene. During the following week the wreckage of the aircraft was removed from the hill. The crew were taken for burial to Blacon Cemetery, Chester, which had been designated as a Regional Cemetery for the Royal Air Force in 1943. They lie alongside almost 400 other air crew who died on missions or exercises over western Britain during the war, half of which are their fellow Canadians. The cemetery is now a Commonwealth War Cemetery maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Today there is little to mark the crash site of Halifax LL541. A long scar on the hillside marks the point at which the aircraft made impact, but there is no other memorial there to the 8 brave young Canadians who came to fight for our freedom and made the ultimate sacrifice.
