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Main image: Photo: Guy Wareham (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons. The huge stone cairn of the middle and highest barrow with the trig pillar in front of it, under blue sky with brown moorland grass.
On 1 March 1944 a Vickers Wellington on a delivery flight to North Africa flew into the hillside just north-east of the central barrow on Three Barrows Hill. All four crew died. The wreck was not found for three days, when walkers came across it.
- Aircraft: Vickers Wellington B Mk X, LN775
- Unit: No. 3 Overseas Aircraft Dispatch Unit, RAF Hurn, Dorset
- Date: 1 March 1944
- Crew: Four, all killed
- Grid reference: SX 65400 62600
What happened
The aircraft was being flown from Hurn to Mediterranean Air Command at Rabat in Morocco. It had drifted about 25 miles off its briefed route when it flew into cloud and struck the hill, and it burned. Neither source I found gives a formal cause or says whether the drift was a navigation error.
What you can see
A scar in the ground with a few small pieces of aircraft, a narrow piece of pipework, small lumps of melted aluminium and spent .303 cartridge cases. There is only a temporary memorial. The site is within sight of the central barrow but little visited, and the main track runs north to south along a reave away from it.
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.
What is not confirmed
The crew's names come from a single website. I found no Devon HER record for this crash and no entry in the main aviation database, so the account rests on two websites, both modern. Do not confuse it with the Wellington near Kitty Tor.
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