Among the wreckage was one of the plane's Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, guns and ammunition. The wooden fuselage had long since rotted away.
The wreck came to light during building work on a John Lewis distribution centre. After striking a heavy object hidden in the mud builders contacted the police who in turn brought in the Royal Air Force when they realised it was part of a wreck.
The RAF team identified the aircraft as being from No 51 Operational Training Unit which had been based at RAF Cranfield in Bedfordshire. The twin-engined aircraft had been on a routine training misson when mechanical failure forced the pilot to bring it down in a field in what was then Buckinghamshire and is now the outskirts of Milton Keynes.
It took off on its ill-fated cross country night flight at 1735hrs on 14 January 1945. Pilot Warrant Officer Gavin Harvie and navigator Sergeant Martin Sydney Card quickly discovered that some of the Mosquito's equipment was malfunctioning and radioed a distress call just minutes into the flight.
Changing course, they turned back towards RAF Cranfield while talking to the ground controllers. The radio transmission suddenly went dead and a flash was seen from the crash site.
John Munnelly, Senior Project Manager of the distribution centre, said that uncovering the wreckage 60 years later was emotional:
"It was a moving experience being shown the crash site of the aircraft, especially given that it is exactly where the entrance to the site will be located."
There are now plans to mark the crash site with a plaque at the distribution centre's entrance while the Mosquito's engine will be displayed in the central estate office of the logistics park on which the John Lewis distribution centre will stand. John said:
"It is fitting that we should commemorate the lives of the two crew members."
This article was written by Heath Reidy and is reproduced with the kind permission of the John Lewis Distribution Chronicle.
