Today the Team was honoured as in previous years, to attend the Remembrance Sunday Service at the Bomber Memorial, Lead Mines Valley, Anglezarke. For the first time the Team placed a wreath on the memorial, honouring all military aircrew who had come to grief on the West Pennine Moors.

The Service is held annually to remember the crew of a Wellington Bomber which crashed onto the nearby moor in the early hours of Tuesday 16th November 1943 (although the memorial states in error the crash was November the 12th). The aircraft was on a Bullseye navigation exercise from its base at RAF Wymeswold, Leicestershire. The Wellington Z8799 was from 28 OTU (Operational Training Unit) All six Austrailian crew perished in the accident, the pilot was a Flight Sergeant, the other five were all Sergeants.

The hymn sheet for the Remembrance Service

Over the years this Service has grown in popularity, with over 130 people gathered at the Memorial today, including local walkers, local rambling groups including Chorley Ramblers, fell runners and Mountain Bikers.

A local gentleman leads the service and has done much by way of contact with the remaining families of the aircrew in Australia, and the Royal Australian Air Force. Uniquely at the service besides the National Anthem being played, the Australian National Anthem is also played.

Assembled crowd for this special service.

The service today took place in excellent sunny conditions and the words of the organiser to the assembled crowds, ie ’We are thankful for the Mountain Rescue in red jackets being here today, if you see them suddenly move they have something to attend to’, came true when how little did he know that part way through the Service we would be required to attend to a medical emergency. See Incident report 93/2005