Boots Across Britain: February 2009

Wreck site viewed from the A57

January’s issue of Country Walking contained a feature on the wreck of the B-29 Superfortress scattered on Bleaklow in the Peak District. Coincidentally, we were going on a weekend in Buxton later that month so had an opportunity to view it ourselves.

The wreck is actually an RB-29, a reconaissance version of the aircraft. These had been surreptitiously posted to Europe in 1948 during the Berlin crisis, when the Russians had closed all land routes to the city from the West. The task of the RB-29s was to monitor Soviet troop movements, providing vital information about any possible escalation.

Nose Art

Overexposed was an aircraft of the USAF’s 16th Photographic Reconaissance Squadron, detached to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. It had travelled widely during its life, in 1946 it had been one of the observer aircraft on what at the time was only the third air drop of an atomic weapon (and the first test to do so), “Able”, at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

Captain Landon P Tanner, Pilot

On 3rd November 1948 the aircraft was tasked to visit the US airbase at Burtonwood to collect mail and pay for the small detachment at Scampton. Although not on an operational mission, all Overexposed’s crew members - rather than just the necessary flight crew - invoked the right to accompany their aircraft on the trip giving an on-board total of 13, under the command of Capt Landon P Tanner. In the Austerity Britain of 1948 home comforts would have been hard to come by at an RAF station, particularly in a backwater like rural Lincolnshire. Burtonwood, at that time Europe’s largest airbase and America’s “Gateway to Europe”, would have had numerous comissaries and other familiar facilities dear to US servicemen - truly a small piece of America in South Lancashire. Here they would be able to stock up on essentials to make their stay in wintry England more bearable

Wreck site at Higher Shelf Stones

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

The flight from Scampton to Burtonwood was approximately 80 nautical miles, a flight time of around 25 minutes in an RB-29. The Pennine range of hills lay in the way, in aeronautical terms a relatively low obstacle rarely exceeding 2,000 feet in height. However the cloud base that day was below this level. For some reason at around 11.15am Overexposed flew into the ground at Higher Shelf Stones, just south of the 2,077 feet Bleaklow Hill. All 13 aboard were killed instantly

A puddle frozen solid

Quite why Tanner descended below a safe height this early is not clear. Bleaklow is around 30 nautical miles from Burtonwood and he did not need to be at 2,000 feet until 10 miles or so from his destination, another 7 minutes’ flying time away. It is unlikely that he would have been trying to descend below the cloud base, in order to correctly ascertain his position, knowing that high ground was below.
A strong headwind is one possibility. The wind that day must have had a considerable south-westerly component as the crash site is 4 miles north of the Scampton-Burtonwood direct track (though given the dead-reckoning navigation of the time this amount of error would have been within tolerances). But if in doubt as to his position there were other options, such as staying at the safe height for that sector and making a spiral descent overhead the Burtonwood airfield beacon, a procedure known as a QGH let-down.
By all accounts engine failure seems to have been discounted, so this appears to have been a case of what today is known as CFIT – Controlled Flight Into Terrain.

Arrival at Snake Pass

On our visit on 1st February it was bitterly cold with a biting easterly wind, a foretaste of the heavy snows that would fall over the country that night and cause disruption for over a week. Roadside puddles where we parked were frozen solid.
The Country Walking article implied that the wreck of Overexposed is quite remote. In fact a GPS reading from the A57 Snake pass put it at a range of only 1.25 miles, although taking a direct track would be impracticable due to terrain. The paving slabs of the Pennine Way take you to the east of the site, then a fairly distinct path takes you west north west towards the wreck. Normally this would be quite boggy but on this occasion the frozen ground made the task a lot easier.

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

The first view of the wreck was from about 400 yards away, a section of starboard wing, engine mount and undercarriage. The peat hags hid the total scene until we were almost at the site. Then, climbing up onto a tufted mound, we were suddenly confronted by a mass of scattered wreckage. It is immediately clear to the visitor what a substantial aircraft this was. Many pieces of the wreckage have suffered minimal deterioration, making this appear to be a far more recent casualty than it actually is. Investigators at the time took away a few key pieces such as altimeters and propellers, and the aircraft’s numerous armaments from its five turrets were also taken away – though ammunition at the site seems to have been more difficult to retrieve. My father recalls hiking to the wreck with the Boy Scouts in 1957 and picking up numerous .5 calibre rounds.

The Pennine Way towards Bleaklow

Overexposed’s tail section survived the crash intact (see video below), but this substantial piece of the wreck is no longer there. It would have been visible for miles, and given the area’s inclusion in the Peak District National Park three years later it seems fair to assume that it was cut up and/or removed to avoid becoming an eyesore on the landscape. (The strong winds which ravage the moor could also have meant that the giant tailfin would have acted as a sail, causing the whole section to move large distances – and be a hazard to anybody in the vicinity at the time).

First view of the wreckage

Engine mount and undercarriage wheel in a wing section

Wright R-3350 Radial Engine

In 1988 students from the RAF’s Navigation School at Finningley erected a memorial to the crew here, a poignant reminder of what can happen when a navigator gets it wrong.

We stayed around 20 minutes, but the cold began to wear us down and we retreated back towards the A57. Looking back from the road, the sun was now out over Higher Shelf Stones, but it wasn't going to last for long. Large snowflakes were falling at Snake Pass, and it was with some relief that we headed away from the coming snow showers towards Glossop.