STINKY at rest after breaching the wall in the distance

 In Athenry on the 15^th of January 1943 the dawn broke just like any other mid January morning in Ireland. It was a cold misty morning with low cloud, as the sun began to rise and the mist began to clear, Matt Loughnane, my uncle from Graig Abbey, and a few others were commencing their day’s work for Galway County Council in a sand pit in Cahertubber about a mile and a half from Athenry. Presently the drone of a large aircraft was heard, the plane was not visible at first but through breaks in the clearing mist and low cloud, glimpses of the low flying plane were seen.

An aeroplane was a rarity in the skies over Athenry in those days, needless to say the work stopped as individuals tried to get a better fix on the type of plane and why exactly was it flying so low? An hour or so passed; the morning began to clear and the plane was still circling the Athenry townlands. The plane was now visible to many in an area within a few miles radius around the town.

Eamonn Geary, then a young 6 year old boy, was attending Esker National School; he recalls seeing the plane, its was so low that he remembers seeing the front gunner in his position in the front of the plane, which had a clear dome mounted for visibility. He was enthralled, little did he know that by the end of the day he was to be given his first orange and indeed enjoy its flavour, it had been brought home to him from the crash site by Joseph Ruane, a workman at Esker Monastery.

Photo taken from STINKY over Gibraltar

The plane and its passengers had set out from Gibraltar at 2:00 am in good weather conditions, making there way to Portreath in Cornwall England. During the flight, which appeared to be going as planned, navigational mistakes were made and the plane missed an important turning position over the Bay of Biscay, which would have enabled it to land at its planned destination. The then co-pilot Lt. James Kemp McLaughlin in an interview reported that an explanation for this could be that General Devers had expressed he did not want to fly over the Brest Peninsula, but to go west a little out into the Atlantic and then turn again east for Portreath at a later stage in the flight. The navigator Lt. C. B. Collins objected to this change, but he had to yield to the General’s wisdom; following this several attempts to gain radio fixes from the RAF were made but none were successful.  Landing in Portreath that morning was not to be, eventually land was sighted, it was described as possibly being Lundy Island. In the distance a coastline was visible and decisions were made to ‘pick it up’ and fly west along it to determine by use of charts and maps the exact position of the aircraft. The navigator could not match the coastline below with any coastline on any map in his possession; the crew did not know they were over Ireland. What they did know was the land below was either mountains, bogs or very small fields with no suitable landing sites…they were lost!

The crew knew if they flew north they at least would be moving away from German occupied territories and the fuel on the plane would also be used up allowing for a safer forced landing if this became the only option. The option of the Generals parachuting from the plane was considered and declined. The plane could not attempt to land on rough ground with a substantial amount of fuel onboard and so having used up fuel as the flight continued up as far as Galway Bay the plane moved in over the land to select a suitable area in which to put down. To the consternation of the pilot when he was low enough to observe the ground conditions he saw that the good fields had been ‘Spiked’.

The spiking of fields during the emergency of WWII was common; it was deliberately done, placing large timber stakes into the ground so making any safe landing from the air difficult or indeed impossible. The plane had not enough fuel to get back up to a height were the party could safely parachute from, as climbing with such a large aircraft would take time and a lot of power and thus a lot of fuel. The plane was now low on fuel so this was no longer a realistic option.