The bombers in the marsh

On 29 November 1944, two Douglas A-26 Invader US bomber planes crashed into Warton Marsh, eight miles from Preston, in Lancashire. Both planes, along with a number of others, had left Warton Airbase in formation, en route to join forces in the preparations for the Battle of the Bulge, which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. Only one minute off the runway and 1,000 feet into the air, the aircraft collided and came to rest in the marsh. All the crew died. Their bodies were recovered from the planes, but an investigation into the causes of the crash was inconclusive.

When the planes crashed back in 1944, they landed directly on sand. Since then, however, about two metres of silt has built up over the wrecks. It means that the site is a difficult one to excavate, and an earlier attempt to retrieve the aircraft in the 1980s was unsuccessful.

For this programme, Time Team enlisted a veteran air crash investigator, along with the RAF's 'crash and burn' team and other experts to try to find out what caused the crash. Each of the planes, including the engines, was believed to be relatively intact and, it was hoped, would provide the necessary information to determine why these two planes collided.

Local eyewitnesses and fellow flyers in the US Air Force were all called upon to help to build up a picture of what happened on that fateful day in 1944.

Time Trail

This was not the first time that Time Team investigated the site of crashed Second-World-War aircraft. It did so first for the 1999 series, when the team visited Reedham Marshes in Norfolk – a site that had many similarities with the one at Warton Marsh.

In February 1944, two American Flying Fortress bombers crashed into each other on their way back from a bombing raid over Germany. One of the aircraft fell into in a marsh at Reedham – killing all 10 of the crew – and gradually became buried in the peat. The incident was forgotten until a group of aviation enthusiasts attempted to raise the 30-ton plane in the 1970s. Three decades later, their leader contacted Time Team. The excavation techniques required for this dig were like nothing the team had experienced before.

Those techniques were put to good use again the following year at Wierre-Effroy, near Boulogne in France. This time the site was that of one of the first Spitfire aircraft lost in France. The pilot, Paul Klipsch, aged 24, had never flown in a combat mission before. He is remembered as one of the 1,500 Royal Air Force pilots who gave their lives during the early period of the Second World War.

Time Team also ventured into the archaeology of the Second World War as part of the 60th-anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings. This took the team to Normandy to recreate the 'longest day' of the 1st Dorset Regiment, which landed on Gold Beach at 7.45am on 6 June 1944.

Now test your knowledge with our quick Time Trial quiz to see how much you know.

Text only