History man’s wartime death honoured
‘His contribution to the school of history has been outstanding’ - Winston Churchill
A FOUR-engined wartime bomber may have been heard through thick mist blanketing Kintyre on Monday September 1, 1941.
Moments later, at 10.30am, there was silence after it struck Arinarach Hill, opposite Ben Ghuilean and somersaulted into Balnabraid Glen, killing all 10 on board.
History professor Robert Balmain Mowat, 58, originally from Edinburgh, was travelling back from America where he had given a series of lectures, about six months before Pearl Harbor. He was one of a number of people trying to influence America to join the Second World War.
For nearly 75 years his family thought the professor had perished on the slopes of Goatfell in Arran. Earlier this year, research by the professor’s great-grandson, Andrew Bruce, 43, led to the discovery that Mowat had met his end when the Liberator AM915 struck Arinarach Hill.
The crash had been well documented in a number of books and the Courier printed a feature last September. The family had been told of the Arran location by the war ministry and had no reason to doubt it until Mr Bruce decided to find out more.
There are two memorials to Mowat but the location of his grave remains a mystery.
At a memorial service in 1941, wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill said: ‘His loss will be a great blow to the university, where his contribution to the school of history has been outstanding.’
On Thursday of last week 14 members of his family travelled to Kintyre to get as close as possible to the site of the fatal accident.
In Campbeltown, they met Anglo-Israeli Jon Immanuel, 66, from Jerusalem, whose great-uncle, Mark Benjamin, 33, also perished in the crash.
Service
At precisely 10.30am, exactly 75 yeas to thehour a memorial service was held by the Commonwealth War Graves in Kilkerran cemetery, where radio officer S W Sydenham and Technical Officer E Taylor are buried.
Professor Mowat’s great-nephew Ben, 32, the only person with the Mowat name present, played his violin before two readings and two poems.
Mowat’s grandson John wrote this line: ‘We, his inheritors, come to this rock, remembering a man we never knew...’
Following the service the party ascended Glenramskill guided by local author Angus Martin, whose own grandson Innes Martin Shireff was born to his daughter Bella at 2am that morning.
Professor Mowat’s grand-daughter Ann Bruce, 71, said: ‘It was pretty tough. I am so glad that we did it and got within sight of the crash site. It is still a bit of a mystery about exactly what happened.’