Historical society honours airmen who lost their lives in wartime crash near Saint John

Memories of airmen kept alive Remembrance Day is 76th anniversary of bomber crash that killed two near Saint John. Laura Lyall reports.

BLACK RIVER, N.B. — Wednesday marks 76 years since a Second World War aircraft went down in the woods east of Saint John, N.B.

Scattered along the forest floor are countless metal fragments, which are the pieces of wreckage from the aircraft.

"You only mainly see what was left of the metal parts of the plane, but the bulk of the plane was actually of wood," said project researcher Bruce Bagnell. "It was called the wooden wonder, or the timber terror."

That plane was the Mosquito bomber -- a twin-engined combat aircraft described as the fastest aircraft in the sky, on either side, for much of the war.

On Nov. 11, 1944, two airmen started a navigational training exercise out of Greenwood, N.S., but the weather would take a turn for the worse, with very poor visibility.

"As they followed the coast, they came to an inlet here, and it turned abruptly left, and they probably wouldn't have been aware of that," Bagnell said. "They were just following the shoreline, so immediately in front of them would have appeared land."

What started out as a training mission, ended in a deadly crash. Twenty-five-year-old Sgt. Earl Douglas Bround and 24-year-old Flying Officer Donald Arthur Willett died in the crash.

On Tuesday, a memorial plaque was installed at the site by the Turnbull, N.B., chapter of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society to honour the memories of the two men who lost their lives.

"Our effort really is to preserve the memory of the people, the aviation history of the province, and of this area of Canada," said Peter Hanlon of the Turnbull chapter.

Bagnell said the plaque also serves another important purpose.

"For the families as well," he said. "I think it provides a bit of closure for them too. It means quite a bit to them to know that earl and don are remembered."