Peak District Air Accident Research

Whitley Mk.V P5009 of No.10 Bombing & Gunnery School, Dumfries, crashed at Loch Enoch on the 27th November 1940.

The aircraft had taken off from Dumfries for a short flight to West Freugh near Stranraer, though the unit ORB recorded the flight as being the opposite direction, so that a group of officers could be collected and brought to Dumfries. The aircraft was tracked by the Royal Observer Corps as far as Dalry on the eastern side of the mountains. Nothing more was seen or heard of the aircraft until wreckage was discovered by a shepherd at Loch Enoch to the north of Glen Trool on the 11th December.

A party of 35 airmen and 1 officer were sent out from Dumfries to recover the bodies of the crew but they could only locate those of the two pilots, recording "bodies of missing Polish Officer and Sergeant found near wrecked machine, no trace, however, of English occupant AC Barnes". The aircraft had crashed on an outcrop adjacent to the Loch and a large portion of the aircraft had ended up in the water. It was therefore assumed that AC Barnes' body was trapped in that wreckage and was beyond reach. He was recorded on the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey as missing.

The remaining wreckage is mainly in the form of corrugated sheets from within the wings, such as this section lying in a pool, the loch is over the small rise in the background.

Another photograph of more sections lying in a wet area.

Further pieces lie on slightly drier ground nearby.

The two Polish crew members were buried in a joint grave at Dumfries (St Andrew's) Roman Catholic Cemetery.

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