But his influence extended far beyond his own team, most particularly in that he was instrumental in starting the training courses which were to become a bi-annual feature of mountain rescue. However, although he did so much for improving the standard, his suggestions might have had little impact with Air Ministry but for an incident which took place in Scotland just before Easter 1951.

In the far north of Scotland, forty miles west of Inverness, three great mountains rise between the inlets of Torridon and Loch Maree. Beinn Eighe, 3,309 feet, is the most easterly of these. It is more of a massif than a peak; a long ridge stretching for nearly four miles, falling nowhere below 2,700 feet, and having seven tops. Near the western end, locked between the highest peaks of the range, lies Coire Mhic Fhearchair, a remote basin five miles from the nearest road and backed by the Triple Buttresses of Beinn Eighe, 1,300 feet high.

The mountains of Torridon - Beinn Eighe, Liathach and Beinn Alligin - come within the area of the R.A.F. mountain rescue team at Kinloss in Morayshire.

At 6.4 p.m. on March 13th, 1951 a Lancaster with eight men on board took off from Kinloss on a navigational flight in the Rockall and Faroes areas. It was due back at 2.25 a.m. on the 14th. It never returned.

At 2.0 a.m. on the 14th, a boy in Torridon saw a red flash. He thought this had something to do with boats on one of the lochs and dismissed it from his mind. Next day he was away from home and it wasn't until the 16th, two days after the aircraft was reported missing and after an intensive air search which had revealed nothing, that he heard the story and realised the significance of the flash he had seen in the night. He told the local postmaster, who contacted R.A.F., Kinloss. By now several reports had come in - from other people who had seen a flash in the early hours of the 14th. It had been visible from the road which runs along the shore of Loch Maree and it had been to the south, in the direction of Beinn Eighe.

The air search was concentrated here and the wreck of the Lancaster was sighted on the mountain on the 16th.

The rescue team arrived in the area on the 17th and made a survey. On the 18th they approached Beinn Eighe from the north, going up into Coire Mhic Fhearchair from Loch Maree. They came to the foot of the Triple Buttresses and found the wreckage from the Lancaster lying in the corrie. But it was obvious that what they found had fallen there; the greater bulk of the aircraft was somewhere high above, and this included the occupants, alive or dead.

An attempt was made to climb the cliff by a gully to the side of the buttresses. This failed. Perhaps it was just as well, for the police were wearing Wellington boots - no footwear for any mountain under winter conditions - and even in the team the boots were poor. Not every member possessed an ice axe, and few, indeed, would have known how to use one, for there was a good sprinkling of untrained men. Continue to page 10