'Sleepy Time Gal': the men who never made it home

I have taken several guests to the wreck of Sleepy Time Gal at the Fairy Lochs, but it is not a walk I would recommend to somebody simply looking for another attraction to visit. Although the circuit is only around four miles, it climbs more than 600 feet from the Kerry Bridge road over rocky, boggy ground where the route is not always clear. Summer can bring relentless midges, while going outside their season generally means accepting wetter conditions underfoot, so reaching the site requires a willingness to spend time in rough Highland country.

The aircraft came down here on 13 June 1945, more than a month after the war in Europe had ended, while carrying nine crew and six passengers from Prestwick towards Iceland and the onward journey across the Atlantic. Somehow, the American B-24 Liberator had travelled too far east over Wester Ross, although exactly how its final flight unfolded remains uncertain. Evidence suggests it clipped Slioch before descending through cloud above Loch Gairloch, and it may have circled in search of somewhere to make an emergency landing. Instead, it struck the rocky ground beside the Fairy Lochs, killing all fifteen men aboard so soon after they had survived the war.

Walking into the lochans today, you encounter wreckage scattered through a beautiful landscape of exposed rock and moorland, with engines, wheels and twisted aluminium bringing the crash uncomfortably close. Part of the undercarriage looks almost as though it has only recently arrived, until you examine the tyre still attached to it and see how more than eighty years of Highland weather have left it fractured and collapsing. A propeller projects from the water nearby, while the names on a plaque fixed to the rock give you fifteen reasons to pause before beginning the return walk.

Allow at least two hours for the circuit, with additional time to spend quietly among the remains, and remember that this is a war memorial whose wreckage should be left undisturbed. I have seen people carrying away fragments of aluminium and becoming defensive when challenged, apparently convinced that their small souvenir could make no difference. Yet it is the accumulation of those small removals that will eventually diminish what we find here, taking away the very evidence that makes the site so affecting. The effort of reaching the Fairy Lochs is worthwhile for those prepared for the walk, but the privilege is to visit these men’s memorial and leave it intact for whoever comes after us.

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