大象传媒

At around 11:25am on 1 January 1940, an RAF 7 Squadron ^{About links1} on a navigational exercise from its base at Upper Heyford struck, in bad weather, the mist-shrouded summit of Snaefell, at 2,036ft. the highest point on Britain's Isle of Man.

And as the rapidly disintegrating aircraft bounced down the mountainside, one member of crew, Cpl. Ted Brightmore, was miraculously tossed out before the aircraft exploded.

"I remember a terrific thump and tearing sound, being drenched in petrol, a big explosion, rolling into some snow which must have put on my personal fire and saved my life."
- Cpl. Ted Brightmore (in a 1990 letter to Harry Jacobson)

After badly-burned Corporal Brightmore struggled in the snow, eventually reaching the farmhouse home of Mrs. Jessie Cottier some two miles away, a search and rescue party from Isle of Man airbase, RAF Jurby, including Harry Jacobson, was mobilised to find the downed aircraft. With the assistance of the same Mrs. Cottier, who directed the rescue party, the party were able to locate the wreckage of the bomber, which was strewn across the mountainside, and where they found the charred bodies of the three crewmen who had not survived the crash:

• P/O Horace McGregor - Pilot
• Sgt. Thomas Dennis - Navigator
• Sgt. Robert Bailey - Navigator U/T

Some weeks later, while Harry Jacobson was recuperating in the camp sick bay from the pneumonia he had contracted that night², Ted Brightmore was brought in and placed in the next bed.

"This badly burned airman was put in the bed next to me. I watched the orderlies dress his hands with vaseline gloves every two hours. We both left hospital on the same date. He had his mother with him and that is the last I saw of him."
- Harry Jacobson, 1995

But then, as a result of Brightmore's 1990 letter to Harry, the pair met again 55 years later, in 1995, when together they paid a visit to Snaefell where remarkably they were also able to meet again with Jessie Cottier, then 92 years-old. The Director of Snaefell Mountain Railway gave permission for the train to stop near the summit, where they laid a wreath and where ^{About links} to that day.

¹听A 4-seater bomber

²听and from which he still suffers today

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