HISTORIAN Steve Chapples remembers a dark day on Black Hameldon Hill 65 years ago.

It was in February 1945 when a B24 American bomber crashed into the hillside, close to Worsthorne.

That day Lieutenant Charles Goeking was flying his craft to Burtonwood Air Base, near Warrington, but was given incorrect information about the wind drift, while also encountering dense cloud and rain.

An experienced pilot, he had flown 26 bombing missions over the German marshalling yards at Siegan, in the Ruhr Valley.

But that day, through a clearing, he found himself flying over the tall mill chimneys of Whittlefield, in Burnley.

He manoeuvred the heavy craft away on full throttle and came over the moorland close to Worsthorne.

Through the dense cloud ahead of him he saw Black Hameldon Hill, which stands at 1,570 feet. He pulled his joystick back, but it was too late.

The giant Liberator’s tail ploughed into the hillside at 500ft and was torn off, killing four of the crew instantly.

The remainder of the plane crashed into the ground 100 yards further on and, of the other seven crewmen, only three survived the impact.

Lieutenant Goeking was one. He was catapulted through the armour-plated cockpit glass, which was two inches thick and, as the plane caught fire and ammunition began to explode, he landed face down, away from the plane, in thick mud.

Parts of the plane were later taken as trophies and mementoes by people visiting the site, where live ammunition still lay scattered.

Lieutenant Goeking spent many months in hospital, but in 1973, by then a director of a masonry firm in Kansas, he returned to Burnley, with his wife, for a nostalgic trip to the crash scene.

Once at the fateful spot he found that the armour-plated seats from the cockpit were still there and arranged to have them shipped back to the States.

Author Kevin Mount, who penned a book titled ‘Wartime Pendle’, was once offered one of the engines at a car boot sale.

Another can be seen at Newark Air Museum.