Left Marker
On Friday June 1st, 1945 at 9:06 am, eleven Royal Air Force members training at No.5 O.T.U Abbotsford, took off and flew into thick clouds aboard B-24 Liberator bomber KK241. Their mission; a navigation exercise to Penticton, Revelstoke and return. The last acknowledged radio transmission was at 9:40 AM.
During sixteen desperate days, over one million kilometers were flown searching for the missing men. Two hundred crew in 53 planes flew 372 sorties to find them. KK241 was finally located on June 16th. It had struck Mt. Welch, less than 100 feet from the summit. The rescue group used jeeps and packhorses to get closer to the crash site. The steep terrain was so difficult it took three more days to reach the site on foot.
Right Marker
The treacherous terrain made it impossible to remove the remains of the crew. The men were buried in a mass grave between the summits of Mt. Welch and Mt. Still. The grave was marked with a simple wooden cross. The crash was one of the worst military training accidents in Canada during WWII.
In 1983 Air Cadets from 861 Silverfox Squadron in Abbotsford, under Commanding Officer Chris Weicht, constructed a memorial cairn beside Airplane Creek incorporating one of the Liberator’s engines. In 2013 Air Cadets from 147 Airwolf Squadron in Chilliwack, under the command of Capt. Ted Bowman and supervised by Lt. (N) Ron Shore, found the1983 memorial face down and unrecoverable in Airplane Creek. Plans were made at that time to build a new memorial. On July 14, 2015, this engine was recovered from the crash site.
This monument was dedicated on September 26, 2015 with members of Gordon Hammond and David Langlands families present.
Reverse Side of Monument:
Left Rear Marker
"In two world wars one million Canadians came to Britain and joined the fight for freedom. From danger shared, our friendship prospers"
This memorial also pays tribute to the 55,573 Bomber Command aircrew who perished, of those 10,659 were Canadian. They perished in training accidents, in the skies over Europe and in prisoner-of- war (POW) camps.
Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) 1940-1945, Canada hosted and graduated 131,533 pilots, observers, flight engineers, and other aircrew. The crew of KK241 was one such crew. Over 100 aerodromes and landing fields were built under the plan. Abbotsford’s airport was one of them. Aircrews from Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and France trained in Canada. Most who flew were very young, the majority in their late teens.
Right Rear Marker
During World War II Canada had a population of only 11 million people. Still, more than one million men and women joined the military to fight for peace and freedom. More than half of all men in BC and 40 % of all men in Canada aged 18-45 enlisted.
During the War, the Women’s Auxiliary of Chilliwack planted one Blue Hydrangea at the Chilliwack Middle School for each local airman lost. By the end of the War, the living memorial had 49 Blue Hydrangeas planted. One was planted to honour the men of KK241.
113,663 members of the Canadian Forces were killed during the First and Second World Wars. Please take a moment to remember and be grateful to the men and women who have served, or are currently serving to protect our peace and freedom.
French Version included as per translation provided by Veterans affairs
