Date:	Thursday 1 January 1942
Time:	14:00
Type:	Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I
Owner/operator:	96 Sqn RAF
Registration:	N3432
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Other fatalities:	0
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Between Sallows and Sour Howes, Troutbeck, Windermere, Cumberland -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Squires Gate, Lancashire
Destination airport:	RAF East Fortune, East Lothian

Narrative:
Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I N3432, 96 Squadron, RAF Wrexham: Written off (destroyed) On 1st January 1942. This aircraft had just been allotted to 60 OTU based at East Fortune airfield and was being flown on its delivery flight possibly taking off from Squires Gate airfield just after midday. The aircraft flew into poor weather over southern side of the Lake District as it headed north and the pilot had probably become lost while flying through cloud, to locate his position he probably descended over high ground but flying roughly west to east at the time. The aircraft struck the ground between the hills of Sallows and Sour Howes around 14.00 hrs and sadly the pilot was killed and the aircraft was destroyed.

Much of the aircraft was buried on site by the RAF MU team who "cleared" crash sites during the War, but in the 1980s the site was excavated by a civilian group and many of their finds were later on show in the Millom Air Museum but since its closure in 2011 it is not known where the items are now located.

The aircraft is credited elsewhere as simply flying into the wall along the ridge between Sallows and Sour Howes, this is not actually the case as it appears to have first struck the ground around twenty metres away on the Troutbeck side of the wall. It first struck grass and then more severely it first hit a low rock out-crop where a few small fragments of the aircraft were still present in 2013. The Wainwright track between Sallows and Sour Howes then passes through the crash site and a couple of shallow boggy holes next to the track are probably connected with the crash and could be where the MU team buried some wreckage, further small fragments of the aircraft were located between the track and the wall. The wall must have been damaged but it has been rebuilt to a high standard and the damage is not really noticeable today. After a short walk around to the other side of the wall, a number of small pieces of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine were found scattered down the Kentmere side of the fellside for around a hundred metres but there hardly any airframe parts at the other side of the wall. This suggests that the aircraft had crashed on the Troutbeck side of the wall and much of the aircraft remained there, the force of the impact with the rock and then the wall probably caused the engine to break away and then be shattered, with it being under power at the time it seems to have completely disintegrated with the impact with the rock and then the wall and parts of it continued on the direction of flight for some distance.

Crew of Defiant N3432:
Sgt (R/77476) Hiram WOLF (pilot) RCAF - killed

"Hiram Wolf" was an alias for Julius V Greenberg. Julius had attempted to enlist for USAAF service as an Aviation Cadet in 1940 but was rejected as he had no college education and at that time it was required to enlist. He then sought help from two friends and took The US Census's spell his surname "Wolfe" for his early life. He was born on 2nd July 1917 on Peaks Island, Portland, Maine, USA and was the son of William and Dora (née Rosenthal) Wolfe. William Wolfe's parents were both born in Russia but had moved to the USA. In the 1920 census young Hiram was living with his parents, grandparents and other family in Cumberland, Maine, in 1930 he was living with his parents and brother Arnold B Wolfe in Bristol, Massachusetts but they later moved to Boston by the 1940 Census. His parents are credited in the online obituary as living in Los Angeles by 1942. He married Dorothy Frances Clough on 20th September 1941 who was living in Worcester, Massachusetts when he died. He had attended Roxbury Memorial High School, Boston and enlisted into the RCAF before the USA entered the War.

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft N1000-N9999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1977 p 20)
2. 96 Squadron ORB for January to April 1942: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 27/764/25: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8384699
3. http://wwii.ca/memorial/world-war-ii/120112/sergeant-hiram-wolf/
4. CWGC: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2699844/hiram-wolf/
5. https://www.rcafassociation.ca/heritage/history/fallen-aviators/rcaf-casualties-second-world-war/whelan-to-wyton/
6. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/2699844
7. https://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/lakes/n3432.html
8. https://aircrewremembered.com/AircrewDeaths39-47/?q=wolf%2C+Hiram&qand=&exc1=&exc2=&search_only=&search_type=exact
9. https://mapcarta.com/W506460543

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
04-Feb-2008 13:38	JINX	Added
03-Oct-2011 22:14	angels one five	Updated [Location, Nature, Source, Narrative, ]
12-Jan-2012 13:17	Nepa	Updated [Operator, ]
17-Jan-2012 01:12	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, ]
17-Jan-2012 06:28	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, ]
20-Jul-2013 08:20	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Narrative, ]
21-Jul-2013 06:22	JINX	Updated [Operator, Source, Narrative, ]
13-Aug-2013 15:21	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Narrative, ]
14-Aug-2013 20:19	JINX	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, ]
18-Sep-2013 06:54	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Departure airport, Destination airport, Narrative, ]
12-Oct-2013 16:18	JINX	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, ]
01-Nov-2013 20:22	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Narrative, ]
02-May-2014 10:53	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Narrative, ]
11-Aug-2014 17:20	Komes123	Updated [Operator, Phase, Narrative, ]
24-Oct-2014 09:05	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Phase, Narrative, ]
20-Apr-2015 05:04	Komes123	Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Narrative, ]
27-Apr-2015 05:55	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Location, Source, Narrative, ]
27-Apr-2015 08:39	Anthony COX	Updated [Operator, Location, Source, Narrative, ]
19-May-2015 03:47	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Location, Narrative, ]
29-May-2015 06:05	Angel dick one	Updated [Operator, Source, Narrative, ]
02-Jun-2015 00:12	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Source, Narrative, ]
09-Jun-2015 17:28	Angel dick one	Updated [Operator, Narrative, ]
16-Jun-2015 02:52	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Narrative, ]
17-Jun-2015 07:35	Angel dick one	Updated [Operator, Location, Narrative, ]
12-Apr-2017 00:14	angels one five	Updated [Narrative, ]
25-Jan-2021 00:05	angels one five	Updated [Time, Location, Narrative, ]
29-May-2024 20:59	Nepa	Updated [Time, Departure airport, Narrative, Operator, ]