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US Navy Liberator crash site, West Okement Valley
Okehampton, Devon
Grid ref: SX 5672 8847
Main image: Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography. An engine and wreckage on the slope in the West Okement valley, with a small remembrance cross beside it.
On 28 December 1943 a US Navy Liberator flew into the ridge above the West Okement valley in low cloud. All ten crew died. Pieces of the aircraft lie strewn from near the top of the ridge down the steep valley side towards the river, and a memorial stone stands on the ridge (see the memorial stone listing).
- Aircraft: Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator, Bureau No. 63926
- Unit: VB-110, US Navy, Fleet Air Wing 7, from Dunkeswell in Devon
- Date: 28 December 1943, about 22:15 to 22:20
- Crew: Ten, all killed
- Upper wreckage: SX 56721 88472
- Middle wreckage: SX 56783 88528 and SX 56785 88528
- Memorial stone: SX 56570 88327
What happened
The Liberator was one of 15 sent from Dunkeswell to find a group of eleven enemy destroyers in the Bay of Biscay. On the way home it was warned of enemy aircraft and exchanged fire with two of them. At about 22:15 it radioed that it expected to land at 22:20. Minutes later it hit the hill at roughly 540 m, ploughed along the slope for about a quarter of a mile and went over the edge of the ridge into the valley.
The sources I have read agree on low cloud. They do not quote an official finding, and one account that blames dead-reckoning navigation is the author's own reading. Several say the aircraft still carried its bomb load, which nobody explains.
What you can see
Burnt airframe, armour plate and part of an engine (one of the four Twin Wasp radials) lie scattered down the slope. Much of the wreck was cleared in the 1960s after complaints from conservationists, and the Devon Aircraft Research and Recovery Team found more pieces in 1973. An engine from the site was shown at Okehampton Museum in 1985. The site is not marked on the Ordnance Survey map.
Access
The site is in or beside a military danger area. Check the firing programme before you go and do not enter when the red flags are flying.
All military aircraft crash sites in the UK are protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. It is an offence to dig, move or take anything from one without a licence from the Ministry of Defence, and many are war graves. Look, photograph, leave everything where it is.
Names and places
Some websites list this crash as "Okehampton Moor", and the Devon HER plots that record 2.4 km to the north: the same aircraft, put in the wrong place. The nearby B-17 crash at Tiger's Marsh happened three days earlier and is a different aircraft; one aviation database has blended the two.
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