ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 70068
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| Date: | Tuesday 29 September 1942 |
| Time: | 10:30 |
| Type: |  Supermarine Spitfire Mk VB |
| Owner/operator: | 421 (Red Indian) Sqn RCAF |
| Registration: | BM575 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Moel Cynhordy, near St. John's Colliery, Maesteg, South Wales -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Training |
| Departure airport: | RAF Fairwood Common, Swansea, West Glamorgan, South Wales |
| Return. |
Lost in rain squall over Port Talbot; inexperienced pilot became separated from his lead and flew off course towards Maesteg. Flew into Moel Cynhordy near St. John's Colliery, somewhere above Nant Cwm Du, in thick fog. Aircraft destroyed by fire, 1 killed (American) Sgt Norman Hugh Mackay (Service Number R/98260, aged 25). RAF Stormy Down sent an ambulance to recover the body of Sgt Mackay and return him to the squadron's base at RAF Fairwood Common. He was buried at Killay (St. Hilary of Poictiers) Churchyard, Grave 203
Some ammunition belts were taken by souvenir hunters and the local farmer ploughed up wreckage years after the crash (statement from a gent in his 70's). On 17 July 2018, a small piece of the aircraft (the brass KY-GAS lever) was put up for sale by an Auction House in Whittlebury, Northamptonshire (see link #6).
Details:
A Castle Bromwich Spitfire and taken on with the RAF at 8MU on the 24th of April 1942. Issued to 421 squadron on the 10th of May 1942. She was attached with ‘B’ Flight and her first flight took place on the 16th of May, flown by P/O Murray on cannon tests off Worms Head.
BM575 was flown on the 20th of May by P/O Art Sager who was to see out the war and afterwards becoming a well-known and respected novelist.
29th of September Sgt ‘Scotty’ MacKay was about to take off in BM575 as number two to Sgt Cook. Scotty had only joined the squadron two weeks prior on the 16th, and this was his first flight with the squadron. Their tasking was a familiarisation flight and recce of their area sector.
They took off at 09:35hrs and were returning to base after a successful flight, but on their return, they entered thick cloud flying line astern, at 10:30hrs they became separated and Sgt Cook lost RT with MacKay. It was later found that around this time and aircraft was heard to crash with the glow of an intense fire being seen above St Johns Colliery near Maesteg on the mountain known as Moel Cynhordy.
Farm workers were quick on the scene and were soon joined by colliers from St Johns, but it was evident that there was nothing that could be done! The scene that lay before them was one straight from hell. Above the intense fire the hilltop and leading down to the main area was a trail of wrecked aircraft and torn soil with patches of fire and other unimaginable fragments. There was nothing to signify what the crashed aircraft was and even less of the unfortunate pilot.
When the emergency services and the RAF recovery crews could get into the destruction, all they could find was small fragments of alloy and some sources say, a hand! Eventually a set of ‘Dog Tags’ was found. This then gave the crews all they needed to identify the aircraft and its pilot. What was gathered of the pilot, sandbags were apparently added in the coffin for weight? (This is purely speculation).
Sgt Mackay was an American who joined the RCAF and was due to be transferred over to the USAAF along with four other 421 squadron members.
The accident card ‘Fm 1180’ does not exist in the RAF Museum records at Hendon because of the fire at the archives during the 60’s. If the only human remains found at the crash site was a hand, which was buried along with sandbags! If this is true then an official memorial placed there, seeing as it would be a war grave.
As was the case with squadrons, life went on and on the 2nd of October the move from Fairwood to RAF Kenley, started. Three officers and sixty ground personell set off at 07:45hrs for the GWR station at Dunvant for Paddington. Later that day, two Sparrows and a Kawker Harrow arrived for the squadron tools and remaining ground crews and pilots for which there was insufficient aircraft. They too left for Kenley! Meanwhile the funeral of Sgt MacKay took place, he was buried with full RAF honours provided by the station staff, not one member of 421 squadron could attend! Such was the pressure of war!
The squadron flew their ‘Rhubarbs’ over enemy held France during the beginning of 1943.
Crew:
Sgt Norman Hugh ‘Scotty’ MacKay 25yo R/98260 RCAF. Pilot. Killed.
Son of A. I. MacKay and Eva Pierce MacKay of Saratoga Springs, New York USA.
Buried:
Killay (St Hilary) Churchyard. Grave 203.
Wreckage:
Some years later the farmer unearthed wreckage from ploughing a field nearby.
Something remains below ground but the site maybe or should be classed as a war grave until otherwise proved differently.
Additional Information:
“SAGER, Arthur Hazelton
On the afternoon of September 22nd, in the 91st year of his extraordinary and rich life, Art Sager succumbed to cancer of the liver and passed away quietly and peacefully at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.
He was born on 22 October 1916 in Hazelton, British Columbia, the son of Dr. William Sager, a medical missionary, and his wife Esther (Hettie), nee Duckers. His life took him to many places: he lived in Surf Inlet, Port Simpson, Port Coquitlam, Vancouver, London (England), Ottawa, New York, Addis Ababa, Rome, Aix en Provence, and, finally, Victoria.
From early 1942 to 1945 he was a Spitfire pilot in the RCAF, becoming a Flight Commander and then Commanding Officer of 443 Squadron. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the French Legion d’Honneur. He was, at various times before and after the war, a journalist, actor, steamship deckhand, mucker, teacher, CBC radio producer, Assistant to the President of the University of British Columbia, Executive Assistant to the federal Minister of Fisheries, Public Relations Director of the Fisheries Association of B.C., Director of the UBC Alumni Association, Director of UBC’s International House, and international civil servant with the United Nations. He finished his career with FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization) in Rome, and then moved to Aix en Provence in 1978, where he lived for a quarter of his life. He moved to Victoria in 2000, and spent seven gloriously energetic and happy years at Somerset House on Dallas Road.
A disciplined and punctilious wordsmith, he is the author of Line Shoot: Diary of a Fighter Pilot (Vanwell, 2002), It’s In the Book: Notes of a Naive Young Man (Trafford, 2003), a family history entitled The Sager Saga (1998), a history of Somerset House, and many short articles and biographies in The Trumpeter, the Somerset House magazine.
Twice married (to the late Dorothy Planche of Vancouver in 1941; to Jacqueline Roussel of Rouen, France, in 1967), he is predeceased by brother Murray and sister Shirley, and survived by his son Eric Sager of Victoria, daughters Ann Blades and Susan Henry of Surrey, granddaughters Catherine and Zoe, grandsons Jack, Angus, James, Kevin and Ian, brothers Melvin and Henry, sister Elsie Wilson, a multitude of cousins and nieces and nephews, friends in several countries, and his beloved companion of recent years, Scotty Day.
Art insisted that there be no funeral, but family and friends are invited to a gathering of remembrance in the Harbour Room, Delta Ocean Pointe Hotel, 45 Songhees Road, Victoria, at 2 p.m. Sunday 30 September.
In lieu of flowers or gifts the family recommends donations in Art’s memory to Y2-K Spitfire”, the Spitfire restoration project, c/o Comox Air Force Museum, 19 Wing Comox.”
Published in The Times Colonist from September 25 to September 26, 2007.
Sources:
1. Canadian Archives, local eyewitnesses, my grandmothers memory of the event, local newspaper clippings.
2. Spitfire Production List: http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p027.html
3. http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/07168.php
4. https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2717291/mackay,-norman-hugh/
5. http://www.ggat.org.uk/timeline/pdf/Military%20Aircraft%20Crash%20Sites%20in%20Southeast%20Wales.pdf
6. https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/humbert-ellis-auctioneers-ltd/catalogue-id-srjp10243/lot-7c56a79f-b815-4f91-8582-a91c0131401a
7. http://ciapoldiescorner.blogspot.com/2009/09/
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 14-Nov-2009 09:33 | Chrisj | Added |
| 14-Nov-2009 23:55 | Chrisj | Updated |
| 29-Dec-2011 06:02 | Chrisj | Updated [Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 01-Jan-2012 10:45 | Nepa | Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Operator, Departure airport] |
| 01-Jan-2012 11:05 | Anon. | Updated [Operator] |
| 01-Jun-2013 08:32 | Nepa | Updated [Operator, Departure airport] |
| 08-May-2019 19:06 | Anon. | Updated [Damage] |
| 19-May-2019 22:09 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Departure airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 16-Jul-2020 11:28 | TigerTimon | Updated [Damage] |
| 26-Sep-2022 18:27 | Davies 62 | Updated [Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
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