At nine o’clock on the morning of Wednesday the 25th September 1946 Colonel Cyril
Wild the chief British war crimes investigator boarded the Royal Air Force Douglas
C-
Also killed in the crash there were five crew members The Pilot warrant officer A Christie second pilot Warrant officer RN Blackmore. Flight Sergeant JK Hazeldine (pilot). Flight Sergeant JW Holden Quartermaster and Navigator .Flight Sergeant RS Bond Wireless operator. Plus colonel C Wild. Mr Davis Chief British war crimes prosecutor. Plus Mr R A Gunnison American newspaper correspondent.Sergeant Cameron British Army. Mr ET Patrick civilian. Leading Signaller Boardman Royal Navy.Gunner R Heathcoat British Army..Driver Timerick British Army. L/Cpl Adcock British Army Plus civilians Mr Chiang Foe Hung. Mr Ng Hung. Mr Troung Ding pheong. Chiang Chu their two year old son.
Witnesses
Within minutes the whole affair was assigned to military intelligence, whatever evidence verbal or otherwise was classified top secret and will never be published. The reason being is that there are far too many anomalies exposing betrayals and outright deceptions which changed the lives of millions of people forever. Within a very short period of time someone had entered colonel Wild’s office in Tokyo and stripped it of every vestige of information on war crimes investigations. Captain John Goodwin of the New Zealand intelligence services, had been instructed by general Macarthur’s office several days before Wilds death, to suspend all investigations. On hearing of colonel Wild’s death he had entered his superiors office in the hope of safeguarding the colonels work. The office had been cleaned out, nothing remained of twelve long moths investigations in which the colonel had accumulated enough evidence to convict the Emperor of Japan of being a class A war criminal. And of being the sole creator of bacteriological units 100 and 731.
Along with the evidence there was a mass of information concerning the Emperors close liaison with the Japanese underworld of prostitution, drug dealers and pharmaceutical blood supplies. Much of this evidence was known to the British government scientists involved in the British bacteriological warfare experiments. Most of it far in advance of what they themselves had developed. All of this information had been spirited away. Captain Goodwin was of the opinion that much of the information had been sent to England where it was sealed und the official secrets act specified to be sealed for 100 years. That information is still being held somewhere in the vaults of the British intelligence services buildings. It was not until several years later that I learned that Captain Godwin had himself removed a vast number of Wilds documents for future use for a book he was going to write. Unfortunately Godwin died before this could be accomplished. Following his death Godwin’s wife advertised for assistance from anyone interested in publishing her husbands work. James Mackay a local seaman took on the job with my assistance and fifteen thousand copies were published in America, and Australia, a further five thousand in the UK. The files which Godwin had spirited away were removed to place of safety by his wife’s legal advisers.
I was only a young soldier of twenty one years serving with the Independent company when I met Colonel Cyril Wild. In the following years as a prisoner of war I got to know a great deal more about him and about his work in the prisoner of war camps with his team of collators who recorded every detail concerning the mistreatment of prisoners and other matters relating to the prisoners themselves. Before the war he had worked for Sun oil in the Japanese petroleum industry. He spoke the language fluently.
At the outbreak of war he had returned to England where he became of immediate use to the British intelligence service and was induced to join the British army, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire regiment with rapid promotion to the rank of captain. In Singapore he was promoted to the rank of major and was assigned to general Percival’s HQ.
When General Percival had reached the decision to capitulate, major Wild along with others was included in the surrender and being the lowest in rank was instructed to carry the white flag. The newsreels show Percival carrying the Union flag and Wild carrying the white flag. What the news reels did not show or record however, was major Wild throwing the white flag down and saying to Percival “This is stupid, let’s go back” with Percival’s reply, “I want none of this”, meaning Wild’s remarks, major Wild then threw the white flag down and hesitated. A Japanese Colonel who was acting as escort, picked up the white flag and marched on at the side of Wild and the others.
He might have been the son of a Bishop, but throughout the time I knew him he was a very strong courageous, determined soldier. During our incarceration Wild and others set up an office for collating and recording all information concerning the treatment of prisoners of war. Included in the team was Padre Duckworth, who became a great friend of Wild, both having come from religious backgrounds and families.
Duckworth who was the padre for the 18th division was allowed by the Japanese to keep his clerical vestments in a small attaché case. Unknown to the Japanese the padre had two similar cases, one for the vestments and one in which to keep important notes and information. It was well known that any prisoner found with writing material of any kind would be executed.
I had joined the army as a boy bugler and had carried my bugle with me. (I attended many funerals from being taken POW up to the end of the war). The Japanese allowed me to keep the bugle for this purpose and issued me with an arm band which stated that I was a musician to the dead. This allowed me to wander between various camps in Thailand to sound the last post at various funerals. I had been assigned to work during the building of the railway with Kaiyoki Tanaka and his assistant Hashimoto. Two of the most evil men, both were civilian engineers. Working for them however provided me with certain privileges which allowing me greater freedom than other prisoners
After the war, major Wild held a small party in Rangoon in which he solemnly promised everyone at the gathering, that he would pursue to the ends of the earth those Japanese responsible for the murder and ill treatment of Allied prisoners of war. Most of those close to him knew that he had enough evidence to arrest he Emperor .
After only a brief leave in England he was assigned to the British team investigating Japanese war criminals. It was he who located the bodies of Z force the men responsible for the destruction of Japanese shipping in Singapore and who the Japanese executed by decapitation just prior to the end of the war.
Wild who was assisted by investigators from Australia and New Zealand had uncovered very solid information and documentation which could lead to the arrest of the Emperor himself . Hirohito was the founder of the Japanese unit 731 (Bacteriological experimentation unit, responsible for the mutilation and murder of so many Chinese and allied prisoners of war. His funds being provided by the Japanese underworld of drug smugglers and manufacturers. Wild had accumulated enough evidence to fill two tea chests with documentation. This fact he made known to his friends and close associates. After giving evidence at the Tokyo trials he was on his way to Singapore via Hong Kong
Where he met other members of the British war crimes investigation team and legal representatives. At that meeting he was still curious to know why was it urgent for him to get to Singapore immediately, when he was due there to attend the war crimes trials within 48 hours anyhow. Initially on his arrival in Hong Kong from Tokyo, he had been informed that there were no aircraft available for him to continue his journey to Singapore. Yet later that night he was informed that a Dakota was being made available.
This report does not comply with the information provided by airmen and pilots serving at that time or two Chinese workers employed at the station who were on the scene. They stated that there was a small explosion and a puff of smoke from the rear of the plane as it took off. Remarks from two other pilots serving at the time agreed that “ the plane would never have been out of control with two experienced pilots and a junior pilot at the controls.
Further reference was made to the fact that runway 31 had never been used previous to this particular take off.
The following information was provided by Mr J Bamford, ex RAF accident investigator
1955-
In reply to information I had sent concerning the crash of the Dakota in which Colonel Wild lost his life.
Date October 2001
Dear Arthur,
Re your enquiry, I will try to make sense of it for you.
The accident involved a 110 Squadron Dakota Serial number KN414 , which was fitted with two Pratt Witney Wasp engines (Serial numbers given ) The ‘E’ indicates that the engines , similar to the rest of the air frame was damaged to category ‘E’ = Total write off.
The pilot Warrant Officer Christie was an experienced pilot with 489 hours flying time and 389 hours on Dakota’s the other pilot Warrant Officer Blackmore had 1,352 hours flying time including 427 on Dakota’s. In terms of experience they were not exactly ‘novices’
. Blackmore was acting as screening captain and checking Christie out. This means that he Blackmore would have been monitoring everything and ensuring that Christie followed the correct procedures.
We can see that the accident happened just two minutes into the flight at 0931 hrs, after a take of on runway 31. Runway numbers indicate the direction of the runway in degrees, rounded up to the nearest degree and with the last digit above or below 5 dropped. For instance a bearing of 316 degrees would be designated runway 32, while a runway with a heading of 314 would be 31.
After take off it is claimed that the aircraft climbed to 700 or 800 feet then dropped out of control. It was claimed that this happened because the plane met turbulence from the foothills caused by a 20 to 30 degree cross wind of 15 to 25 knots as it became airborne.
It was also claimed that the pilot failed to realise the dangers of turbulence over the foot hills and crashed in stall. (Please note that a typhoon warning had been posted earlier in the morning which would have alerted the pilot)
(A stall is when an aircraft stops flying because of a lack of air flow over the wings)
The Comments at the bottom of the accident report second page, refers to form 417 which is an accident report... and goes on.
The AOC agrees with the above and recommends that in future met officers stress the dangers of turbulence on lightly loaded aircraft. KN414 was not lightly loaded as it had 19 people on board. The plane was designed to carry 21 passengers and we know that 5 of KN414’s load were crew. A Dakota in passenger service would normally carry a crew of 3 so that would indicate that KN414 was carrying 16 passengers.
It is not possible to conceive how a cross winds could get the better of two experienced pilots and the only topical explanation might be that the Dakota suffered an engine failure.
If the aircraft was in a climbing turn to port for instance, and it suddenly lost the port engine the power from the starboard engine would spin it into the ground. An explosion on one side or the other would have a similar effect. My suspicions are that a small explosive had been attached to one of the engines.
There is no recorded information concerning the state of the engines when recovered
When Wild died, a close companion, captain James Godwin of the Royal New Zealand navy, who was also a war crimes investigator, went to colonel Wilds office in order to secure the information Wild had accumulated on various war criminals including those against the Emperor. unfortunately in a short space of time someone else had beat him to it.
COLONAL CYRIL WILD -
