Bwlchgwyn Whitley LA766 Memorial

On the night of 11 January 1943, Whitley LA766 took off from RAF Tilstock near Whitchurch in Shropshire on a night navigation exercise. The crew of eight included several trainee navigators, as was typical for 81 OTU flights. The heavy bomber flew into the hillside at Gwernto Bach, between the villages of Bwlchgwyn and Rhydtalog, at about 20:45. All eight men were killed. The youngest, Sergeant David Blackburn Lister, was just 18 years old. There is a local account that one airman — possibly Sergeant Alex Taylor Strachan, aged 19 — was still alive when found but died at the scene before help could arrive. The pilot, Warrant Officer David Rozell Roberts, was Canadian, serving with the RCAF. The crash occurred in relatively low-lying terrain compared to the Snowdonia crashes, emphasising that the hazards of night flying in wartime affected even the more modest hills of North-East Wales.