Orchard Hill Air Crash Memorial Bench

This memorial stone seat commemorates all those who perished in two aircraft crashes that occurred in this area in 1938 and 1945.
The memorial was dedicated in 1987.

Memorial bench.

Dorset's worst ever air crash disaster happened on June 15, 1945, when five crew, four who were members of the Canadian airforce, and 22 passengers lost their lives.

The RAF Liberator MkIX of No.232 Squadron RAF Transport Command crashed on the spot while en route from a New Forest airfield to Palam, India.

The passengers were airmen being sent out as urgently needed groundcrew at Palam. But the plane never made it.

It impacted on the edge of what is now the Dorset Coastal Path, the wings were ripped off and the engines detached and thrown forward towards Orchard Hill Farm. There were no survivors.

The crash was not the only fatal aircraft accident at this location.

On the afternoon of Friday, March 18, 1938, a student on the torpedo course at the Torpedo Training Unit at RAF Gosport and two passengers took off in a Mk1 Swordfish K5985 on a training cross-country flight to Roborough, near Plymouth.

He is thought to have passed low over Orchard Hill Farm, clipped the top of the trees in Polar Wood - leaving sections of the aircraft in the tree tops - and nose-dived into the steep hillside some 300 yards away.