On the 19th June 1945, 1st Lt Richard Ayers of the 306th Troop carrier Squadron arrived at “Station 597 - Langford Lodge” in a C-47 transport aircraft, tasked with replacing a pilot who had suddenly taken ill he was to ferry the crew of that C-47, back to Metz in France. A short time after arriving while at lunch he got into conversation with test pilot “Lt Glenn Robert Young” or Bob as he was known - and remarked "Gee I’d love to fly an A-20!" Lt Young responded by agreeing to bring him up in one as they where going to flight test some after lunch to ascertain there airworthiness. A collegue of Lt Youngs "1st Lt Jack Knight" who was also a test pilot and at the same table as Young and Ayers contested Lt Young taking Ayers up as he said "those planes are no good" as they where "war-weary" and barely flyable, Young and Knight where apparantly at odds with each other over the matter...

"Above" a Douglas A-20G in similar markings - in flight.

“Above” Test Pilot Lt Fields, left engine startup, in a war-weary A-20 at Langford Lodge, Photographer showing the view Lt Ayers would have had as he hitched a piggy back ride over Lt Youngs Shoulder.

At around 14:15hrs Lt Young climbed into aircraft A-20G army air force serial number 43-9883, along with Lt Ayers whom would be riding along as a passenger on this flight or hitching a piggy back ride as they called it, shortly after takeoff making a left hand pattern of the field Young apparantly wanted to engage Knight in a mock Dogfight, In there A-20’s!!!

Five minutes after takeoff at 14:30hrs Knight flying at around half a miles distance behind Young observed Young's aircraft dive and then pull up sharply and make a steep turn to the left – with Knights distance closing fast he clipped his throttles to reduce airspeed and at an altitude of around 1000ft Young’s aircraft appeared to stall, observing him from behind he recalled that the left engine possibly quit and that smoke was coming from both engines with Young gunning the throttles to gain airspeed and control, at this point being a matter of seconds the aircraft rolled over onto its back and started to spin in an inverted position. Recovery could not be made by Lieutenant Young from this altitude and the aircraft dropped straight to the ground landing belly up.

To locate the area where the accident occurred I went around the local area having a fair idea of the locality of the crash, asking farmers & locals looking for eyewitnesses. After a few hours I finally found an eyewitness, a Mr Charlie Sufferin, working in a field half a mile from where the crash occurred, he recalls seeing both Young & Knights aircraft buzzing and darting about the area at tree top level, he then recalled the final moments as Young dived and made a steep climb, glancing away and looking back he seen the aircraft spinning towards the ground nose down – tail up & knew that a crash was imminent, running towards the area, he arrived to find army & military police where already at the scene, restricting anyone from entering the field.

A farmhouse of the Landowner a “Mr Browns” windows cracked due to the shock wave in the ground from the force of impact.
Mr Brown arriving at the field realising sadly little could be done for the crew opened the field gate as he knew there would be a large amount of personnel on the way at this point,
Instead of using the entrance provided army air force personnel ended up ploughing through the hedgerow with the base fire engine leaving one very unhappy land owner. Mr Suffern also recalled how the locals where anxious of an explosion due to the aircrafts fuel had begun to seep into the field’s drains.
With our eyewitness evidence and a location to work from our Investigation into the recovery and loss of Lt Young’s aircraft began.

27th August 2002

The day of our search began with scorching hot weather, we arrived at the site at 11:30am we set up our detectors and began scanning the field in a lawnmower style fashion, up & down the field gradually working our way out from our starting point, we searched for at least 2 hours without finding a trace of anything ferrous, with the relentless heat and seemingly no remains of an aircraft to be found we were contemplating packing up & determined that the newly built house now partly in the field must have been built over the site & the builders most likely had dumped whatever was found of an aircraft.

 

After a re-evaluation of the site it was then decided by the group to carry on and perform a more intense search and focus the search area nearer to the house, not long after this we had a blip on the detector and !!jackpot!! there was no doubt that we had found our first piece of Lieutenant Young’s A-20, the item - a small piece of fuselage skin with 6 rivets & paint still present - there was a great feeling of accomplishment within the group at this point and sombreness as after months of discussion and research we had now located this lost unknown piece of history that had remained forgotten for the best part of nearly 60 years.

From the initial location of the first find we decided to carry on & expand the search area into a square working our way out closer to the house, this technique worked well & we were finding dozens of small pieces scattered around most likely from constant ploughing of the field over the years, we were evidently in the debris field & it was only a matter of time before we located the impact location.
Satisfied with our small amount of finds & that we had uncovered an unidentified aircraft with the weather getting warmer we decided to pack up & head for home.

28th August 2002

Day 2 of the site identification consisted of just myself , starting at around 11:00am in the same weather as the day before I began scanning the field once again, after 4 or so hours finding various small pieces on the surface in the same area I was ready to pack up & head for home concluding that all must had been recovered in 1945, when by chance I decided to expand the search area by a few feet more closer to the hedge boundary of the house & then !!bingo!! the detector registered a large object just beneath the surface, I excavated carefully & came across a large solid object lying at a downward angle of 45 degrees & right away I knew I had a propeller blade.

Analysis

The report into the accident in 1945, blame was attributed to the technique in which Lt Young handled the aircraft "apparently allowing the aircraft to develop into a stall" - An eyewitness "1st Lt Jack Knight", whose witness statement was not passed onto the accident board until after the investigation was complete and was then included as an addition into the finished accident report was as follows - Lt Young and Knight took the two aircraft up to be flight tested and ascertain their airworthiness, (Lt Ayers joining Lt Young along for the trip) although Lt Young may have performed some what risky acrobatic manoeuvres in a war-weary aircraft it could not be foreseen what events where about to unfold,

Lt Knight was flying around a half mile behind Young’s aircraft closing fast and reported seeing him dive towards the ground (gaining excessive airspeed) pull up, and make a steep climbing turn to the left, at this time he seen smoke coming from the left engine and the aircraft rolled over and spun in, sadly at too low an altitude for recovery or a bail out to be made, this confirmed his statement as the propeller blade recovered from the crash site showed that it came from an engine that was not under power when the accident occurred.

Lt Young’s aircraft already being in a steep climbing turn on the side the engine quit, the aircraft would have dramatically lost flying speed, stall, into the dead engine/wing causing the aircraft to adopt a typical "stall nose down attitude" and incipient spin into the left wing from which recovery was not possible at such a low altitude, in my opinion pilot error is not a contributing factor as the main cause was mechanical failure of an engine that compromised safe handling of the aircraft at a critical point while in a steep angle of attack causing the aircraft to stall/spin and a guaranteed 0% chance of recovery by the pilot.

Lt Young without a doubt realising his aircraft had developed into a stall/spin would have hit full throttles and full opposite "right rudder" to counteract the spin - gain airspeed - and bring the aircraft back to a normal attitude, sadly to recover from a stall/spin usually takes a few thousand feet in this type of aircraft and anything below 3500ft would opt for a bail-out.

1st Lt. Glenn R. Young, USAAF 0-886034

Born 25th April, 1922 in Whitley County Kentucky U.S.A. His father Thomas Young, was a lawyer in Corbin Kentucky, Sadly going into ill health after the loss of his son. Lt Young had a brother & sister, Thomas Young, a lawyer of Corbin & Pauline Young Russell. Having two young children, Robert David Young, named after his father as Glenn was known as Bob, and daughter Anna Young, Glenn enlisted in the RCAF on the 9th October 1941.
He was given 18 months training & then assigned to active duty at the front. He flew a bomber across the Atlantic and was stationed at RAF Bircham Newton, later being promoted to flight officer & flew 20 missions with the RCAF. He then transferred to the USAAF as a first lieutenant and flew 65 additional combat missions in the ETO.
During a mission Lt Young was injured on 23rd December 1944 “Battle of the Bulge” - being a B-26 Marauder pilot at this time - for this he received the purple heart & Silver Star Air Medal for outstanding bravery risking his own life in a combat situation for the benefit of his fellow airmen, shortly after release from hospital he was transferred overseas to Northern Ireland from which he was stationed
at the Modification and Repair depot at Langford Lodge as a Flight test pilot.

With war in the ETO over and the PTO coming to a close, Langford was in its final stages of closing down, Lt Young was due to return home to Kentucky, planning to study law and follow in his father and brothers foot steps.
Beating the odds and surviving all his combat missions he was remarked to be the guy with the loud laugh and kind heart, Initially being interred at Lisnabreeny Cemetery at Castlereagh in Belfast with full military honours, 3 years later being disinterred in 1948 & moved to the permanent Cambridge American Cemetery in England where his family attended the ceremony, he is buried at, Plot D Row 4, Grave 1.

1st Lt. Richard I. Ayers, USAAF 0-816199

Born 31st January, 1924 in Martinsville, Indiana (Morgan County), U.S.A. At the time of his death on June 19, 1945 near Langford Lodge, Northern Ireland, his immediate family included his father and mother, Ernest and Beryl Ayers; one sister, Patsy, age 12, and one brother, Jay, age 9.
Lieutenant Ayers graduated from Martinsville High School in 1941, where he had been very active playing drums in both orchestra and band, plus singing in the chorus. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in the summer of 1942, and entered active duty on February 2, 1943. After initial testing and indoctrination at Montgomery, Alabama, he was selected for flight school in Arkansas. Following his basic flight training, he was sent to Freeman Field, Seymour, Indiana for multi-engine training. He was commissioned as a second Lieutenant and received his pilot wings on November 3, 1943. Since this was only 65 miles from his hometown, his entire family attended the ceremony.
Lt. Ayers was subsequently assigned to receive training as a C-47 pilot at Bergstrom Field, Austin, Texas. In December he was assigned to the 306th Troop Carrier Squadron, 442nd Troop Carrier Group at Alliance, Nebraska. By late January 1944 his unit was transferred to Pope Field at Fort Bragg, North Carolina for training in towing gliders and dropping paratroops and supplies. Then in March, the unit was sent to Baer Field, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, just prior to its departure for England via Brazil and Africa. While in England Lt Ayers was stationed at Ramsbury Airfield APO 133 in Berkshire.
Lt. Ayers’ unit participated in several major military operations including Operation Overlord, Operation Market Garden, and the eventual Rhine River crossing into Germany, along with many re-supply and evacuation activities. The unit was eventually re-located to Metz, France for several months prior to the accident in Northern Ireland.
Because of war-time security and the unsophisticated communication methods at the time, the family of Lt. Ayers was not notified of his death until June 29th, ten days after it happened. The family was eventually told that Lt. Ayers had been sent back to Northern Ireland to temporarily replace a pilot of another crew who had been either injured (?) or became suddenly ill, so that the C-47 aircraft of that crew could be returned to Metz. Lt. Ayers was buried initially in Lisnabreeny Cemetery, in Belfast. In July, 1948, his body was returned to Martinsville, Indiana for re-burial in Greenlawn Cemetery,