RAAF
Daniel Leahy 2000
Pilot F/O Don Flavel
Navigator F/O Robert Clayton
Radio Flt Sgt L. J. Sims
Crew F/O Fred Wallis
Crashed June 4, 1945
Mission History
The plane departed Mount Gambier, South Australia, at 1733 hours bound for Eskdale
on a night astronavigation exercise. It crashed on Mt Tawonga.
Controversial Search
A five-day search of the suspected crash area revealed nothing, and
incredibly the RAAF convened a court to close the case, even though
eyewitnesses had provided the court with evidence of an aircraft crash
on Mount Tawonga. Upset at such a hurried and forced decision, relatives
organized their own ground search led by Lt Richard Hamilton of the
Volunteer Defense Corps. Hamilton's volunteers found the crash within
two and a half hours of their first search of Mount Tawonga. The four
crew were subsequently retrieved from the mountainside and buried at
the Sale military cemetery. Much of the wreckage remains at the site,
and incredibly, pieces of the tail section still retain their camouflage
green and brown.
Michael
Claringbould visited this wreck in 1999:
"Instead of taking up an easterly heading it maintained a north-easterly
course which took it over the Victorian Alps. Several bearing corrections
were transmitted to the aircraft, but they were never acknowledged and
Flavel made the fatal mistake of descending in instrument conditions
without knowing his position. Radio contact ceased at 2015 hours after
the aircraft had flown directly into the side of Mount Tawonga."
Daniel
Leahy visited the site on November
28, 2000:
" The wreck of Beaufort is spread about 250m down a gully and
there are still some very large pieces there. Unfortunately, some stupid
idiots
have scratched their names etc. into some of the remaining camouflage
- some have even let loose with the blue spray cans."
Beaufort
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