The Junkers emerged from the cloud cover as it could not maintain height.  Waiting below was Sergeant Pilkington in his Spitfire pure adrenalin pumped through his veins.  The illuminated gun-sight of the fighter framed the Junkers and a 3 second burst of cannon fire sealed the Junkers fate and without guns they couldn’t return fire.

Lt Bohle momentarily lost control of the now heavily damaged Junkers, at the last possible moment he regained control and headed for a cloud formation at approximately 4,000ft.  In the dense cloud he could see nothing at all, suddenly a gap in the clouds revealed a mountain coming up extremely fast the mountain was “Drum Ddu” hawling back on the joystick the twin engined Junkers levelled out and pancaked into the mountain.  All 4 crew members were badly injured and rendered unconscious.  After several minutes Sergeant “Kauter” regained consciousness, he helped the badly injured crew mates from the smashed Junkers.  He inflated a rubber life raft and put his injured airmen underneath for shelter.

Kauter crawled on his hands and knees following a small stream downhill to a village called “Mallwyd” he knocked on the door of the nearest farm house.  He was promptly arrested and so were his crew mates.  They recovered in hospital and were shipped to Canada as prisoners of war.

Years later in an interview Lt Bohle claimed he had no idea the was a mountain range that high in Wales and God himself must have spared him and his crew that September day in 1940.

I have visited Wales many times in the last 25 years and I am always taken a-back by its rugged beauty.   I always take a minute or two to think of the brave airmen of all nations that have met their deaths in the mountain peaks of north Wales.