Service to remember US air crew killed in North Wales tragedy
AMEMORIAL service will be held to mark the 75th anniversary of the death of eight airmen off Anglesey.
On December 22, 1944 the airmen were aboard a US Eighth Airforce B-24 Bomber – nicknamed the ‘Jigs Up’ – which ran out of fuel trying to land at RAF Valley.
The airmen who died parachuted out but they were still over the sea near the North Stack lighthouse and having no flotation or survival equipment they drowned.
The pilot and co-pilot baled out just before the aircraft crashed into the cliff and both survived.
An open air service of remembrance will be held at the Breakwater Country Park, Holyhead, on December 15 at 11am.
The ceremony, which will be attended by representatives of the British and American military services and civic dignitaries, will feature the unveiling of a propeller recovered from the wreckage on top of a large rock.
A new memorial bench will also be revealed where visitors can sit, reflect and remember the brave airmen.
Jeff Evans, of the North Stack Memorial Group, said: “It’s only fitting that we remember those Allies who ensured today we have freedom.
“It will be an opportunity for everyone to show respect and honour those who died so we can live.”
The four-engined B-24 Liberator bomber, serial number 42-51232 R4-J, was returning to its base at RAF Cheddington, Buckinghamshire, following a mission over Germany where they had dropped slithers of aluminium foil to break up radar communications.
Bad weather forced the plane, and several others, to divert to RAF Valley and it ran out of fuel as it attempted to circle the airfield before taking its turn to land.
Soldiers from Ty Croes artillery range joined RAF and American ground crew to search for the plane on land.
Boats under the command of HMS Bee searched offshore.
Pilot Harold Boehm was found in a field near Holyhead. His copilot, Donald Burch, was picked up in Trearddur Bay. The wreckage, at the high water mark, was still burning at dawn the next day.
In the early 1990s a diver discovered the wreckage of the Jigs Up and recovered two propellers. One is now displayed within a museum at Fort Fisher, North Carolina, and the other was placed within the Breakwater Country
Park, Holyhead.
Mr Evans said in 2014 the North Stack Memorial Group was formed, with an intent to host a Memorial Service to honour and remember the Jigs Up and its lost crew, and to place a memorial in a better, more accessible site within the park.
Mr Evans added: “This will be a poignant occasion with the propeller placed on top of a large rock, draped with the USA, Welsh and British Flags, and the schoolchildren, accompanied by the Holyhead and Bangor Male Voice Choir will sing the USA and Welsh National Anthems.
“Citations will be read out and wreaths will be laid and the RNLI Lifeboat will place 5,000 poppies near to the crash site, and over the area where the crew had lost their lives.”