Description of Historic Place

The 1942 Plane Crash Site is located in the Stage Cove area of the Town of Conche. It contains the wreck of a kind of short-range bomber plane known as a Boston (Douglas DB-7), in a fenced off grassy area. The municipal heritage designation is confined to that fenced off area of land.

Heritage Value

The 1942 Plane Crash Site has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Conche because of its historic and aesthetic values.

The 1942 Plane Crash Site has historic value due to its connection to an unusual World War II period event in community memory at Conche. On November 30, 1942 Boston BZ-277, piloted by Robert Morrow, took off from Gander, Newfoundland. Morrow was a Canadian who had gone to England in 1940 and flew fighter planes for two years. He was given thirty days leave in Canada in September of 1942 before assuming command of a fighting wing. After that leave he undertook to work his way back to the United Kingdom by flying an aircraft on a transatlantic ferry flight. Boston BZ-277 got into trouble, possibly because it was short of petrol and the crew uncertain of their position off the coast, or because of loss of control in icing conditions. The navigator bailed out and was uninjured. Morrow and the radio operator crash-landed the aircraft at Conche, and received just minor injuries. Salvage was carried out on the aircraft by its own crew, the crew of the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) coastal ship L.K. Sweeney and some local men. Parts that were not salvaged were left at the wreck site.

The 1942 Plane Crash Site has aesthetic value due to its quite striking appearance on Conche’s rural coastal landscape. The wreck of the plane is still in its original place, and the Town of Conche has erected interpretative information and fenced the site to draw attention to its significance.

Source: Town of Conche Town Council Meeting Minutes of 2007/12/19

Character-Defining Elements

-presence of the original plane wreck;
-and the location of the site.