Monument record BLB 090 - Fatal Aircraft Crash Site

The notional point of the fatal aerial explosion of an American Liberator aircraft PB4Y-1, serial number 32271, said to have taken place over woods, named "Newdelight Covert", on 12th August 1944. On board was United States Navy Lieutenant (Lt.) Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., the elder brother of the future American President J.F. Kennedy. The aircraft was part of a secret mission using an experimental system to attack a German V-weapon site in occupied France (probably a V-3 "supergun" site at Mimoyeques). The system and the special United States Navy unit that operated it were codenamed "Project Anvil"- the Navy version of a similar project called "Aphrodite". The premise of the system was the deployment of a "Drone" aircraft (the Liberator) packed with Torpex high explosives, which once started on its flight by a picked crew of two people, would be guided to crash into its target by radio remote control by a "mother-ship" aircraft. The crew of the "Drone" were intended to have previously bailed out over England on radio control being firmly established. The other crew-member was Lt. Wilford John Willy, who designed most of the weapons system. First based at Dunkeswell in Devon, the project moved to Fersfield Airfield on July 31st 1944. The Drone was equipped with a nose camera that was part of the aircraft's remote guidance system, codenamed "Block". Although the cause of the explosion was not conclusively proven, it may have been because of lack of electrical shielding on "Block"- causing a detonator to set off the Torpex. The resulting huge explosion scattered wreckage over a large area, estimated at three by two miles across. The remains of the crew were never found. Contemporary aerial photographs of the immediate area do not show any major damage relating to the crash. Should any traces relating to the incident be found, they would be covered by the 1986 Military Remains Act, and a licence from the Ministry of Defence would be required to recover them (S1).

January 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths National Mapping Programme.
It was not possible to determine any evidence for this crash site from the available aerial photographs.
E. Ford (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 29th January 2015.