The Gaspe crash of de Havilland Mosquito KA982

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

The Gaspe crash of de Havilland Mosquito KA982

long stroke · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for sharing.

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Interesting. I imagine there weren't a lot of public records available of military planes crashing during wartime, as all such information was pretty much kept confidential back in the day.

I hope you can get some leads, though.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

There is this excellent AVN Aviation Safety Network database.

Lots of Mosquito incidents logged. But it does not include the incident with KA982. I went through it all in the hope.

It's actually quite gut wrenching to read a lot of them. Poor young souls.

CDN2PLS2 · Uber Guru

My grandmother was in York,across the river.

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

cdnpont wrote:
There is this excellent AVN Aviation Safety Network database.
Lots of Mosquito incidents logged. But it does not include the incident with KA982. I went through it all in the hope.
It's actually quite gut wrenching to read a lot of them. Poor young souls.

It's a little eerie reading them.

Three incidents in 2 days in Nova Scotia, Sep 16-17, 1944

de Havilland crash NS 1944.jpeg

The first one was 2 fatalities during a training mission:

"Narrative:
Mosquito KB289 Accident RCAF Annapolis Royal NS 16.9.1944
Crew:
P/O (172.212) Albert Marie Louis Adhemar De STEENHAULT De WAERBEEK (pilot) RAFVR - killed
F/Sgt (1299856) Claude Julien Victor Hilaire GROENSTEEN (nav.) RAFVR - killed"

The second one of Sep 16 sounds like it just exploded in mid air during an undisclosed military function:

"Mosquito KB248 It is believed that this Mosquito, flying from 8 OTU at RCAF Greenwood, disintegrated or exploded in flight, crashing several miles north of Harbourville, Nova Scotia. 16.9.1944

Crew:
F/O (C/24441) John Earl MOON (pilot) RCAF killed
P/O (J/45527) James Arthur WALKER (nav.) RCAF killed "

The third one also during a training mission (no fatalities):

"Narrative:
Mosquito KB256 The port U/C folded after landing causing the wing to drop with lose of speed with resultant damage cat.C. 17.9.1944
Crew: ?? OK"

Then another one on Sep 24 due to engine failure - also no fatalities in that one:

"Mosquito KB280 forced landing after port engine failed RCAF Accident Kingston, NS.24.9.1944
Crew:
F/O (149.383) Leonard George OFFEN (pilot) RAFVR - slightly injured
Sgt (1585617) James Arthur PRESTON (nav.) RAFVR - Ok"

...and these were all in non-combat situations!

Those are all just on the page that you linked to. It's hard to imagine times like this in today's context, but crazy things were happening all over, and with the rush to get planes into the war, there's a good chance that some were simply caused by errors of inexperienced pilots.

68 Grande · Guru

Very interesting topic. I enjoy aviation history and these stories are heartbreaking in terms of the amount of human loss during this time. I have read that many pilots ferrying aircraft across North America from US factories to Gander were women. I am not sure if these women also flew across the Atlantic but it was a horrific period of time.

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

Interesting! There was a large WWII flight training camp in western PEI. Quite a few planes crashed during the time it was open with quite a few fatalities. I'll have to find the link about it. It's a fascinating part of WWII history.

DonSSDD · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Canadian Poncho wrote:
Interesting! There was a large WWII flight training camp in western PEI. Quite a few planes crashed during the time it was open with quite a few fatalities. I'll have to find the link about it. It's a fascinating part of WWII history.

There was a training base in Mount Pleasant near where I grew up. They crashed them all the time, we had pieces of aircraft stuck in a tree on our property when I was a kid. They tore up the concrete runways in the 60s, there was a flying club there with 1 runway. There was also a large air base in summerside, pei, still in use.

There were women ferrying aircraft from Canada to Britain in ww2.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

The really sad ones were the ones that just went missing during the crossing. No trace to be seen or found, ever. There is a bunch in that database to that effect.

How would a family deal with that?

The AVN database can be searched by year. You start at 41 or so and move through to, say, 47. Man there are a lot of losses in that time period.

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

Thanks for reminding me of the location of the airfield Don! That helped me find the link. This is a great read!

http://www.islandlives.ca/fedora/repository/ilives%3A266875/PDF/ilives%3A266875/Full%20Text.pdf

DonSSDD wrote:
\
There was a training base in Mount Pleasant near where I grew up. They crashed them all the time, we had pieces of aircraft stuck in a tree on our property when I was a kid. They tore up the concrete runways in the 60s, there was a flying club there with 1 runway. There was also a large air base in summerside, pei, still in use.
There were women ferrying aircraft from Canada to Britain in ww2.

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

Great history Mark. I would love to find wartime plane treasures. Time to get out my metal detector! biggrin

As for PEI; Dale Lidstone (of Canadian Classics magazine fame) bought an old airstrip and hangar up west for the test drives and repairs of classic cars. I'm not sure of what era the airbase was/is or it's former use.

Yes, Slemon Park in Summerside is the old CFB Summerside (closed in the early '90s). I saw an exhibition of old CFB Summerside memorabilia at the Eptek Centre in Summerside ... very cool.

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

The reason I noted the bases I did, were because the names of those seemed to be coming up most often in the crash database list. Debert seeming to be most prominent with the Mosquito. And a few from that base with very close serials to KA982. As a side note, Debert is where the Diefenbunker is located. That base was described as the RCAF's "Best kept secret" upon closing. I'd never heard of it until now.

It's interesting how many small fields were used for training, either being taken over by the RCAF, or being actually constructed by them. They seem to be absolutely everywhere. There are a bunch in southern Ontario. This was a Herculean effort to be sure.

Here's a Wiki page of bases in Canada

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

Interestingly enough another Mosquito crashed after leaving Summerside, PE. It went down in Bedeque Bay. This happened December 10, 1944
www.bedequemuseum.ca/bedeques-aviation-crashes.html

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Good find Todd!

KB536

cdnpont · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

The more I read, the more I'm starting to think that KA982 was a part of RCAF No. 12 Eastern air command, No. 7 or 8 OTU.

Basically set up for St Lawrence U Boat patrol.

66 Grande guy · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Thrilling and tragic times of incredible people doing incredible things to be sure.

Most of you guys probably know this but in 1941 Warner Brothers shot a movie on location in Canada designed to salute and boost the Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

It is called Captains of the Clouds and is actually in Technicolour. Worth a look even though most of it is hokum as it does show a graduation ceremony with Billy Bishop himself handing out the medals.

Might be on youtube

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

cdnpont wrote:
The reason I noted the bases I did, were because the names of those seemed to be coming up most often in the crash database list. Debert seeming to be most prominent with the Mosquito. And a few from that base with very close serials to KA982. As a side note, Debert is where the Diefenbunker is located. That base was described as the RCAF's "Best kept secret" upon closing. I'd never heard of it until now.
It's interesting how many small fields were used for training, either being taken over by the RCAF, or being actually constructed by them. They seem to be absolutely everywhere. There are a bunch in southern Ontario. This was a Herculean effort to be sure.
Here's a Wiki page of bases in Canada

There were a number of smaller airfields in NS as well:

https://militarybruce.com/abandoned-canadian-military-bases/abandoned-bases/nova-scotia/

One I am particularly familiar with is in Maitland, as there used to be a drag strip running on one of the old airfields:

"Royal Canadian Air Force Detachment Maitland:

Opened in 1940 as a Relief Landing Field for No. 31 Operation Training Unit at Debert. As with all RLFs, the Detachment had a hangar, barracks, although only 2 of the 3 runways of the usual standard triangle-pattern runways were ever built.

In January 1944, the Detachment changed functions when it became the home to No. 1 Aircrew Graduates Training School. No. 1 AGTS closed on 1 November 1944 and the aerodrome was abandoned.

After the war, the Detachment was used as a retraining facility for returning military personnel.

All that remains today are the abandoned runways, once used for sports car racing, and the gunnery backstop. As of 2012, the property owner began removing asphalt from some of the runways. The former airport is now a sod farm.

Source material: Abandoned Military Installations of Canada Volume III: Atlantic by Paul Ozorak, http://wikimapia.org/9870109/Maitland & information provided by Lisa Schuyler www.lisaschuyler.com."

Info about the dismantling of the airport here: https://lisa.blog/2012/03/10/discovering-maitland-nova-scotia/

Some photos of cars at Maitland in the link: http://dragsite.tripod.com/id8.htm

And yes, it is now a sod farm: https://www.elmsdalelandscaping.com/our-history.html

DonSSDD · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Canadian Poncho wrote:
Thanks for reminding me of the location of the airfield Don! That helped me find the link. This is a great read!
http://www.islandlives.ca/fedora/repository/ilives%3A266875/PDF/ilives%3A266875/Full%20Text.pdf
DonSSDD wrote:
\
There was a training base in Mount Pleasant near where I grew up. They crashed them all the time, we had pieces of aircraft stuck in a tree on our property when I was a kid. They tore up the concrete runways in the 60s, there was a flying club there with 1 runway. There was also a large air base in summerside, pei, still in use.
There were women ferrying aircraft from Canada to Britain in ww2.

Thanks for the link Todd, had not seen that and knew all of the locals mentioned. There was a map there with sites of crashes, one was the one I remember in Springhill.

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

There is also the now solved mystery of a "U-boat sinking" off the shore of North Cape, PEI:

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/lifestyles/back-to-the-battle-108625/

bigdreams · Poncho Master!

You might want to reach out to this group

They are a group of aviation enthusiasts who are restoring a Mosquito

https://www.ch2a.ca/copy-of-mosquito