USAAF P-38G Lightnings 42-12928 and 42-12905, Forest of Bowland.
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USAAF P-38G Lightning 42-12928, Forest of Bowland
January 26th 1943. A flight of 45 Lightnings was being transferred from Lincolnshire to Northern Ireland for desert modifications to be carried out, before taking up operational duties with the 78th Fighter Group in North Africa. In poor visibility over northern England, however, two of the Lightnings crashed into each other. Both pilots were killed. Pilot of 12928 was Second Lieutenant S.L White, USAAF
The other P-38 was 42-12905 and came down a mile to the south, crash site (below) photographed September 2020. Pilot of 12905 was First Lieutenant H.L Perry, USAAF
The photo below shows the crash site of 42-12928 photographed September 2020
42-12928 Grid ref SD 66797 56393
42-12905 Grid ref SD 67407 54246
Below, A P-38 over California, 1944. Photo from wikipedia commons
There’s a lot left ! Looks a hard to get to location Ian.I don’t know this area at all.
Yeah, it almost looks like it could be rebuilt !
Looks like a good site Ian . Bowland doesnt get the volume of visitors that other areas get ( it deserves more in my book ) and open access regs have released great tracts of it to us the public . So ,I would guess that the wrecks there are largely untouched by trophy hunters.
looks like this crash still had lots of the plane left.. I can’t believe how many rivets there are in that thing — like it was put together with scraps.
Agree with the comments above – lots of pieces left and there is great detail in the rivets and joints
very interesting ian makes you wonder iof there is any of the sites still out there not found yet
Hi Ian , I think your cross was still present when I visited earlier today , so I used it !
I thought there was a reasonable amount at 42-12905 , not as much as at this one but still a couple of pools and a light spread of wreckage . It is, though ,quite hidden and if you happen to look in the wrong groughs there would be no chance of seeing it, and I was in terrible trouble with the wife for dragging her through all that mud and water and bog. .
The GR for 42-12928 is very accurate and a compass bearing dropped me right on it.
It was a clear day today and I reckoned to being able to make out the wreckage from about 300m distant but it was lost from view as I approached .
You are very lucky!Here in Po valley, after the crash do not remained nothing about the wreck. Alluminium was a treasure here!!!
Bet you all didn’t know that the flight of planes from Lincolnshire were buzzed by a foo fighter on Route it was poor visibility that day but this is bowland not the Himalayas the flight plan would have had an orgamated plan that would have given the pilots an approach altitude so as to give them the option if required to either leval out in flight or descend over the bay and Irish Sea . To reach bowland on the flight plan they had taken would have ment flying at an altitude high enough to avoid land mass higher than the area the p38 g crashed,. To this day type g4 tornadoes and typhoons use the same route in training at low leval I should know as I have trained in one of them and live near by. So don’t just check out the rivets look at the landscape and consider if you believe trained USAF’s pilots would fly into one another or misjudge altitude. Good plane good pilots check the official flight logs , more would be revealed. The crash sites of both does not show any sighns of melting or projectile damage to the fuselage or wings other than the impact damage it would have sustained on impact. Similar crashes have occurred that have sighted foo fighters before an insident.
You would imagine someone who is a highly trained pilot ( Templer ) would at least be able to spell.
Orgamented ? , low leval ?
Think someone is telling porkies eh ……… Templar !