GRIM FIND: Harley Hill dairy farmer Peter Cullen vividly remembers rediscovering the Beaufort Bomber crash site at Foxground.
PARTS of the Beaufort that crashed at Foxground in 1943 are still located high on the escarpment.
In 1999 the crash site was rediscovered by the Gerringong Scouts after being left dormant for 56 years.
The site was located thanks to a map drawn from memory at the time, by possibly the only surviving person to have seen the original wreck, the late George Cullen.
His son Peter, who farms at Harley Hill north-east of Berry, along with Gerringong Scout leaders John Aldrick and Gerringong Anglican Minister Andrew Glover, located the wreck again.
An article about the find was published in the Kiama Independent on August 4, 1999.
“My boys were Scouts and had to do an air-related activity and I remembered my father talking about having seen to the crash site during the war,” Mr Cullen said.
“My dad visited the Scout group and told of his adventure as a younger man visiting the crash scene.
“Back in ’99 we went up to the site with my father and couldn’t find it, then he drew a map and it virtually took us right to the crash site.
“We eventually took the Scout group up there and a plaque was put in place to mark the tragedy.”
Three years later the members of the Christie family along with representatives from the Gerringong RSL sub-branch and the Scout group made an emotional pilgrimage to the site.
It was the first time members of the Christie family, with a nephew of the killed pilot, Robert, his wife and two young children, son Ashley and daughter Sarah, climbed to the site and laid a wreath and flowers at the crash site.
