10. Hercules on a Trailer

On the 10^th February 1945 Beaufighter T FX RD210 took off from its station Pershore, Worcs.  Its Pilot, Australian Flight Officer Alan L Roe, an experienced Pilot of 641 hours, but only around 40 on type, was performing a fuel consumption test. (no two engines ever used the same amount of fuel), his Navigator was W/O Newbry.

The flight had gone according to plan as no contact was made throughout their test flight.  The weather that day was light rain and cloud, but during their journey north they were confronted with a bad storm, just over the Welshpool area.

They tried to fly around this while attempting to stay in visual range of the ground to ease navigation.  During this manoeuvre they must have become lost, their course now took them into the mountains, straight into the cliff face of Aran Fawddwy.

A while later a local Farmer, who was passing Craiglyn Dyfi, the lake at the foot of Aran Fawddwy, noticed the wreckage of RD210.  On close inspection his fears were realised, the wreckage still contained the remains of Flight Officer Roe.  Not knowing how many crew were on board the farmer began to search for others & a short time later he discovered W/O Newbry.  By the Farmer’s account Newbry appeared to have survived the crash and had managed to crawl away from the wreckage only to die later from his wounds.

One can assume that Flight Office Roe had not dived headlong into the cliff (as has been written in other accounts) in his attempt to avoid the storm.  I am sure the Navigator would have been thoroughly aware of the area of high ground they were in. So, diving down to find out where they were is out of the question.

In their attempt to stay ‘visual’ they had inadvertently flown up the valley towards the cloud hidden mountains, then on seeing the cliffs at the last moment, tried to pull up. The impact, by at first not being direct, had saved the Navigator from a quick death, only by being far from immediate help would this be his end - the Pilot died instantly. Flight Officer Roe is buried in Chester’s Blacon Cemetery while W/O Newbry was taken to his home town.

For almost sixty years the two Hercules engines lay amongst the other wreckage in and around the lake.  Just recently local Farmer Mr D.G. Roberts from Bala took it upon himself to set up a memorial to the crew.  He started by removing the engines from the mountain side for safe keeping with the help of around thirty young Farmers.

In the not too distant future he hopes to set up one engine on the south side of the Arans as a more public memorial.  The other engine will return to the lakeside and be mounted in memorial close to the crash site.  To promote his plans he has set up one engine on a homemade trailer & transports it around vintage shows and fetes in the North Wales area to push home the sacrifice that these young airmen had made.  Also to give people, who look upon the engine with interest, an idea of his honourable intentions.

I for one look forward to seeing these memorials set up.  No matter what legal questions may be asked about the slightly unofficial removal of the engines, his heart is in the right place.  Let’s just see the engines there, in their right place.

NB: RD210’s sister aircraft RD220 is currently under restoration at the Museum of Flight at East Fortune Scotland after being brought to the UK from South Africa in 2000.