IN a month of remembrances, September 2018 will be particularly poignant for 89-year-old Abergavenny ex-sailor, Charles Christmas who witnessed the aftermath of one of military history’s forgotten tragedies.

On September 3rd, 1948, an Avron Lancaster from 38 Squadron took off from Malta heading for Cornwall. The flight was part of an exercise involving British and American fleets.

Soon after midnight, the aircraft lost contact with control and an extensive search of the area followed involving the Royal Navy, assisted by ships from the US and Italian fleets.

It was a pilot from the aircraft carrier HMS Triumph who spotted aircraft wreckage scattered across a hill top on the tiny island of Monte Cristo.

A recovery detail was put ashore from the vessel and they quickly established there were no survivors. Bodies of the seven members of the aircraft’s crew were brought aboard the Triumph from where, two days later, they were buried at sea with full military honours.

Charles was nineteen and clearly recalls serving on deck at the time of the burials. ‘We all had to dress in our best whites; the seven stretchers were carried to the rear of the flight deck and then the bodies were committed to the sea.’

Charles, originally from Gringley-on-the-Hill near Doncaster, has lived in Abergavenny since marriage in 1948. At the time of the burials he did not know the names of those who died but research by his son, Mark has put names to the seven airmen who lost their lives on that night seventy years ago.

Charles will turn ninety on September 26th and plans to raise a glass to ‘absent friends’- Flight Lieutenant James Bruce Arthur, Flying Officer John Noel Kingsley, Flying Officer Edward Barthorpe, Engineer Denis Geoffrey Reygate, Signaller Kenneth Richard Shimmons, Signaller Samuel James Herd and Signaller George Dickens.

He said, ‘I would just like to remember them, they died in the service of Britain and it is important that we all remember what the country sometimes forgets.’