The Cleeve Hill plane crash 80 years on - what happened on that fateful day
Watch as a service took place to commemorate the airmen who died after the Halifax bomber crash
Today marks 80 years since seven airmen were killed when a Second World War tragedy happened in Gloucestershire.
The entire crew of a Halifax bomber died when it crashed on Cleeve Common, near Cheltenham, in the early hours of 26 August 1944.
The MZ311 had been assigned to 78 Squadron of the RAF Bomber Command and the majority of the crew on board were Canadian.
The plane had taken off just after 8:30pm on Friday 25 August, along with five other aircraft from RAF Breighton in Yorkshire.
It's mission was to lay mines off at La Rochelle in Western France in a minefield codenamed CINNAMON.
It was as it returned from the raid along the French coast, that disaster struck.
The bomber was flying at a low altitude when it struck Cleeve Hill. It's believed the aircraft was travelling at approximately 200mph.
Reports at the time also said that it appeared to have turned away from its flight path home.
Neither the RAF accident investigation nor the subsequent court of inquiry were able to fully establish the cause of the crash as all systems on board appeared to be normal.
It's thought that despite the general weather conditions being fair on the night, Cleeve Hill had been shrouded in cloud.
None of the investigations following the crash ever conclusively found out why the bomber was flying at such a low altitude at the time of the crash, nor why it had turned away from home.
The men onboard the bomber at the time of the crash were:
- Flight Lieutenant Charles Maurice Howes
- Air Bomber Flying Officer George Willian McCartney
- Flight Sergeant John J McArdle
- Air Gunner Flying Officer John Alexander Glenn
- Air Gunner Pilot Officer Hugh Brannan Hamilton
- Wireless Operator Sergeant Emmanuel Henry Harris
- Navigator Flying Officer Elton Freeman
Today, on the 80th anniversary of their deaths - a memorial dedication was held in their honour.
The memorial was held in Cheltenham and more than 50 relatives of the crew attended.
Maureen Sullivan, daughter of flying officer Charles Howes, flew from Arizona in the US, to attend the memorial service.
She spoke of how understanding the events of that night helped her to understand herself better.
She said: "The English side of me I never knew, because my father was killed when my mother was four months pregnant with me.
"Today was very heart-warming and emotional because I feel like I found who and what I am - the essence of who Maureen is.
"The graciousness and the friendliness and the concern of helping me discover who I am and who my father was - meeting English cousins that I had never met before.
"What it did for the first time in my life, it created a sense of who and what I really am and the essence of who I came from, because I never left that before.
Constable Edward Stortz was another of the 50 relatives of the airmen to attend the ceremony. His great uncle was John Alexander Glenn.
He said: "The build-up to this service required a lot of work and a lot of steps so to finally stand on this ground and see where that mission ended that night put it all together.
"At some moments it is sad, and some moments are joyous and to see all these people coming together for this one reason it just creates that unity.
"They did what they did and we all made our sacrifices."