This incident was recorded
only in the
RAF Davidstow Moor Operations Record Book and Dennis Burke’s
excellent website on foreign aircraft landings in the Irish Republic.
This Wellington Mk X was returning from an anti-submarine patrol over
the Bay of Biscay on July 17th 1943 when it ran out of fuel. The crew bailed-out
over Wexford and landed
safely and the aircraft carried on and crash landed in a place called
Curragh
near the village of Ballickmoyler, Co Laois.
An SOS was picked up at 00.01hrs and three aircraft were sent out to
search for the plane but found no trace as they did not want to violate Irish neutrality
by searching over the Republic. All three aircraft were forced to
abandon the search because of bad visibility.
The crew returned to Britain and
continued to fight; they were Sgt Stanislaw Kieltyka, Sgt Remigiusz
Duszczak, Sgt Karol Stefan Pasieka, Sgt Mieczyslaw Franciszek Salewicz,
Sgt Mikolaj Pawluczyk and Sgt Wladyslaw Kaczan.
Its assumed that there was a news
blackout of the event due to Ireland’s neutrality during the 2nd
World War and therefore nothing was reported in the local paper.
Source:
From: Foreign Aircraft Landings in Ireland 1939 – 1946
http://www.skynet.ie/~dan/war/crashes.htm
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This image
(Google Street View) gives us an approximation of where the plane
crashed.
Thanks to Peter Heary on Facebook for his
help.
It was, as I assumed, a British Wellington
bomber of the
304th Polish Squadron.
The crew bailed out over
Wexford and
the aircraft carried on and crash landed near Ballickmoyler. This happened on July 17th 1943,
which would explain the 1942 dated .303 ammunition rounds.
I have since found out from my cousin Pat
Brennan who remembers the crash in 1943.
This is what she said:
"Something happened with the plane about that
time. People were talking in hushed tones in front of us kids. People
took mementoes from the wreckage. But I think it happened towards
Ovingtons (Hovingtons), past Coolrain towards Carlow. Nobody ever talked about it
afterwards".
Sent in by Terry Curran c.2011 & Pat Brennan.
