Westchester Crash
On the 30th of November, 1944, J43299 Pilot Officer
Donald Lloyd Breadner of Ottawa, Ontario, along with
his navigator J47955 Flying Officer Kenneth Brian Bennett
of Raymond, Alberta (both students at No. 7 Operational
Training Unit, Debert, Nova Scotia) died when their
de Havilland Mosquito B. Mk. 20 s/n KB278, slammed into
a hill roughly three miles north of Westchester, Nova Scotia.
Chris Charland
Associate Air Force Historian
Directorate of Heritage and History
1 Canadian Air Division
http://www.rcaf.com/cgi-bin/robboard.cgi?action=display&num=1127
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My brother and I walked into and found the crash site 4 yrs ago. We looked around for a few minutes and found some remnants of the plane, even some pieces containing wood.
We were disappointed that no permanent memorial was ever constructed at the site to remember the two brave, young men who died there.
Chris Webb
Westchester Station, NS
Aug 24/2010
Yes, very disappointing, and surprising, as P/O Breadner, was the son of Samuel Breadner, a WW I flying ace and at time of the crash was Canadian Air Chief in Europe, later to be RCAF chief. His father’s friend, famous WW I ace Billy Bishop represented his father at the funeral in Ottawa.
He would have grown up among the elite of Ottawa, probably attending private Ashbury College and living in a mansion on Cartier St., long demolished to make way for high rise apartment buildings. His navigator was Kenneth Bennet from Alberta. All information from Googling.
Death certificates on NS archives website.
On November 3, 2011, my brother and I walked in to the crash site and left poppies to mark the impact zone of the tragedy. A small part of the aircraft became embedded in a tree and is now a few feet off the ground. We placed the poppies on this tree in their memory. I will be petitioning Veteran’s Affairs to build a small monument at the road intersection a few hundred yards from the crash. I hope they agree to my request.
Last year we did a project on Canadian soldier in my history class. Doland Lloyd Breadner attended the same school (Glebe Collegiate Institue) that I now currently attend. He participated in similar sports teams and as today is the 11th of November I took a moment of my time to remember the brave man who gave his life to protect his country. Rest in Peace.