Researching historic aviation accidents and locating crash sites in the Peak District & throughout the British Isles
Cessna UC-78A Bobcat 42-58513 of Base Air Depot No.2, USAAF, crashed on Craigton Hill near Milngavie on the 24th May 1944
Photo: United States Air Force
Robert L. Nickerson
1st Lieutenant
Pilot
Killed
Pliny R. Blodgett
1st Lieutenant
Co-pilot
Killed
Paul Johnson Jr
Technical Sergeant
Engineer / Passenger
Killed
The aircraft, baseed at Warton in Lancashire, was being used for an administrative flight. It had taken off from Dyce near Aberdeen at 16:20 for a flight to Renfrew before proceeding onwards eventually returning to Warton.
During the afternoon of the 27th May the wreckage of the aircraft was discovered by a shepherd close to Craigton Loch near Milngavie, which is about 4 1/2 miles off the direct track from Dyce to Renfrew and only 6 1/2 miles away from the airfield. Inquiries found that during the early evening of the 24th that the cloud base in the Milngavie and Renfrew area was approxiamtely 1,000ft with visibility of less than 100 yards in the cloud. No-one had witnessed or heard the crash but it was determined that the pilots had lost control of the aircraft which had then dived into what at the time was open moorland. 1st Lt Nickerson only had 169hr 45min flying time and had been off flying duties for the seven months before the 9th May as well as not having an instrument rating. It was felt that this inexperience coupled with finding themselves in instrument flying conditions which contributed to the crash.
The aircraft was built almost entirely of wood, and this structure had been almost completely destroyed by the crash with the heavier items having buried themselves in the soft ground. What surface wreckage remained was recovered or burnt onsite after the recovery of the three victims and the site left. Since the crash the moorland where it occurred was planted with conifers by the Forestry Commission.
We first visited the crash site in July 2005, a waterlogged hollow in the forest was evident and a few small pieces of the aircraft were found.
In early 2013 the Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum received a licence to excavate the crash site, negotiations of the details of how this would happen and availability of people meant that their recovery efforts could not being until the very end of October 2013. Over a series of weekends running until February 2014 the site was painstakingly excavated in sometimes very difficult working conditions.
Since our first visit to the site the trees had grown sufficiently to block light from the plants growing on the ground and only a thin layer of moss and pine needles covered the site. The waterlogged nature of the ground it very evident as work commenced on the last Saturday in October 2013.Conditions became increasingly muddy as the excavation progressed, while this appears to be a muddy hole with no features we had located the position of one engine (back of the hole) and the instrument panel (near edge).The aircraft’s instrument panel and throttle quadrant after being removed from the forest.The site as it was at the end of the first day or work. The chain block attached to the shear legs was excellent in assisting the recovery of the heavier items, it was also very good at throwing mud over anyone close to it.The beginning of the second day of digging (in November 2013), in the weeks between the first and second days of excavation the hole had filled with water and it took over an hour to empty water and then a soup of peat and water from the hole.By the end of the second day, which went on until only a few minutes before sunset, the first of the aircraft’s two Jacobs R-755 radial engines was lifted from the ground. Photo: Nick Wotherspoon, Lancashire Aircraft Investigation TeamThe first engine on the ground beside the crash site as the light in the forest faded.An general view of the site at the end of the second day.The starboard engine was lifted in early February 2014, it was the last major item to be recovered, after then the task swtiched to reinstating the site and removing items from the hill. Photo: Mark SheldonBetween November and February there were a further four days of excavation and finally clearance before all of the recovered wreckage and equipment could be hauled the one mile back to the head of a farm track from the forest. This shows some of the team hauling one of the engines into the daylight by hand.The second engine being brought out of the forest. From here a system of ropes and pullies stretching some 600ft had been set up to allow a tractor on the opposite side of Craigton Loch to gradually pull the car bonnet sledges to a point where they could be attached directly to the tractor.The maker’s plate on one of the two engines recovered from the site.The second engine’s maker’s plate.The crash site as it was left after work had finished.Carefully pulling an engine across a makeshift bridge over the stream at the end of the loch.Looking back across the loch towards the crash site.None of this would have been possible without the help of this venerable and lovingly restored 1954 Massey Ferguson TED-20 half track.
The three victims of the crash were all initially buried in the UK but two were repatriated to the USA after the end of the war, only 1st Lieutenant Nickerson is buried in the UK, at Cambridge American Military Cemetery.
