Mystery and conspiracy continues to surround aircrash that killed Duke of Kent – 80 years on
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It is 80 years since the Sunderland flying boat W4026 DQ-M crashed near Berriedale. Dan Mackay says a lack of answers have led to more conspiracies
Yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of an aircrash on a remote Caithness hillside which, despite the passage of so many years, remains shrouded in mystery and abounds in so many conspiracy theories.
The circumstances surrounding the crash of the Sunderland flying boat W4026 DQ-M, which erupted into a fireball when it ploughed into remote moorland at Eagle’s Rock just a short distance inland from the coastal village of Berriedale, have been both scrutinised and speculated on for several generations.
Onboard the flight that fateful day was none other than the King’s youngest brother Prince George, more popularly referred to as the Duke of Kent. He was one of the 15 crew who had taken off from the Cromarty Firth on a ‘special mission’ to Iceland.
Yet, tragically, within half an hour the lumbering long distance workhorse being flown by an elite RAF crew came to an abrupt and catastrophic end.
There was only one survivor. Flight Sergeant Andrew Jack, the rear tail gunner, had been thrown with the aircraft’s tail by the force of the impact.
Dunbeath historian George Bethune has written a detailed account – The Duke of Kent’s Crash – A Reconstruction – which catalogues the unfolding events as local estate workers, special police constables (including George’s father) and the community GP rushed to the scene to offer any assistance they could.
As Bethune’s account reveals, the incident has not been forgotten and, indeed, “the air of mystery and intrigue surrounding the crash has persisted”.
What few in the country at that time, during the dark days of World War II, would have known was the very nature of the Duke of Kent, ‘the wayward playboy prince’.
The press of the day was subject to strict wartime censorships and, being under the control of just a few media barons, had a long-standing reputation for protecting the peccadilloes of high society. It reported the loss of a gallant handsome prince in the prime of his life. His death, it observed, had sent shock and sorrow to the people of the British Empire.
Christopher Warwick, in his biographical accounts of ‘George and Marina, Duke and Duchess of Kent’ portrays "a young man voraciously addicted to drugs and sex, with men as much as women". He had an exclusive night-clubbing lifestyle which brought numerous intimate liaisons. But it was his eldest brother, the briefly-reigned King Edward VIII, who had helped cure him of his addiction to morphine and cocaine. The Duke of Kent was aged 39 at the time of his death.
And now, almost 80 years after that fateful day, the questions persist. How had such an experienced crew of skilled RAF aviators got it so badly wrong?
And where are the missing records for historians to research and study the events leading up to the crash?
The absence of official documentation, even now long after the expiry of official secrets, has only contributed to wild speculation, theory and counter theory. Conspiracies abound.
Not least – according to the book Double Standards, The Rudolph Hess Cover-Up – that onboard Flight W4026 DQ-M that fateful day was none other than Hitler’s depute Rudolph Hess, who had previously flown to Britain in 1941 as part of an abortive peace mission. According to one theory, Hess had been picked up at Loch More, having been accommodated at the nearby Braemore Lodge.
Did Sir Archibald Sinclair, grandfather of the current Viscount Thurso, whose estate bordered Braemore and who held the position of Churchill’s Secretary of State for Air during the entire war years, have any knowledge of the plan? Was the plane bound for Iceland or actually Sweden to attend a hushed peace conference?
It was an inconvenient, though little known truth at the time that key royals and members of the nobilty – indeed some senior politicians within the British establishment – had links with the Nazi party and would have preferred a peace settlement.
The idea of a Hess-led peace plan would have appalled Churchill, but did the establishment close ranks to protect leading figures of the day?
The Nucleus Archive in Wick has a fascinating Caithness-shire Constabulary manilla file containing dozens of reports relating to aircraft crashes in the county during the war years – though the one at Eagle’s Rock is conspicuous by its absence. This was not the first Sunderland Flying Boat to have crashed in the vicinity. On October 30, 1940, over a year before, Sunderland P9622 ZMW crashed north of Mulbuie, Houstry, killing four crew and injuring seven others.
Indeed, more than 80 Sunderland flying boats – according to Accident Investigation Branch records – were lost around Scotland, 34 of them out of Invergordon, with only two downed by enemy action. A startling statistic…
We do well to be reminded that some of those former RAF aircraft were referred to as ‘flying coffins’…
The Duke of Kent was a very experienced aviator having amassed more than 60,000 miles according to his biographer. What aircraft lacked then, of course, was the black box voice and flight data recorders. Such a system, had they been available, could have told us so much.
Equally, had he been free to do so, the sole survivor Flight Sergeant Jack could have had his say. After all, he would have heard everything on the flight intercom. But he had been sworn to secrecy. Records of the Official Enquiry – to which Jack was not invited for questioning – are missing, along with the original flight plan. The royal archive at Windsor has nothing to offer the debate.
The captain, Flight Lieutenant Frank Goyen, was blamed as the "aircraft was flown on a track other than indicated on the flight plan". But was he even at the controls? Or the more senior 2nd pilot Wing Commander Thomas Mosley? One researcher described the inquiry outcome as "an unjust and blinkered verdict". The scrupulous site clearance, they say, is evidence of a cover-up job.
The fateful crash remains a riddle forever wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…
Or was it simply a catastrophic botch, swooping down to impress the wayward prince’s friends lodging at Langwell House on the Duke of Portland’s estate?
In his latter years Jack did venture to suggest it was not the pilot’s fault.
