Brother tracks down RAF hero's body 62 years after crash in Malaysian jungle
By Ian Drury
Last updated at 12:50 AM on 3rd March 2012
Killed: Flight Navigator Geoffrey Carpenter in 1950
Their bodies have been lying in the dense Malaysian jungle since their RAF plane crashed during a ferocious conflict in 1950.
But now the 12 victims are to be given a full burial after a painstaking search inspired by the brother of one of the dead airmen.
Eight military personnel and four civilians were on board RAF Dakota KN630 when it plunged into the rainforest on August 25, 1950. Flight Navigator Geoffrey Carpenter, 23, was among them.
Decades later, his brother Dennis, 82, wrote to the Malaysian tourist office in Britain asking for a map of the remote mountainous region around Kampung Penchong where Geoffrey died.
In a remarkable stroke of luck, his request landed on the desk of a military officer at the Malaysian High Commission in London.
Colonel Tajri Alwi ordered a full-scale expedition to be carried out to recover the remains of the warplane, and incredibly, the Malaysian Army’s 8th Brigade located the wreckage.
In November 2008, a 150-strong team of military, police and specialist forensic archaeologists recovered human remains.
They were identified as belonging to those on board Dakota KN630. Next week retired bank clerk Mr Carpenter, from Shirley, Surrey, and his daughter Christine, 49, will join other relatives of the fallen on the 6,500-mile trip to Kuala Lumpur for a burial ceremony.
Father of three Mr Carpenter, who is married to Jean, 82, said: ‘He left home so young I never knew him fully but we were always determined to see him properly buried.
‘We could have gone out before now but we had nowhere to visit. It is comforting that we now have a proper grave with a headstone.’
The crew members who died alongside the navigator were pilot Edward Talbot, 27, and signaller Thomas O’Toole, 34.
The remains from the RAF Dakota KN630 when it plunged into the rainforest
Dennis Carpenter is going to visit the grave of his dead brother in Malaysia 60yrs after his death
The Death Certificate showing exact position of his brother's fatal crash
Mr O’Toole’s daughter will also attend the burial at the Cheras Road Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery. Glenwyn Davies, 65, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, said: ‘I was only a child when he was killed. There are so many different emotions but we are nearly there now.’
Also on board were Army personnel Major John Procter, Corporal Phillip Bryant, 25, and Drivers Peter Taylor, 20, Roy Wilson, 21, and Oliver Goldsmith, 21, plus a Dane and three Malaysian civilians.
The British Armed Forces were deployed as part of the Malayan Emergency, a conflict fought between UK, Commonwealth and other security forces against Communist insurgents in Malaya. It lasted from 1948 to 1960.
The plane was on a target-marking mission near Kempong Jendera, dropping smoke markers for Lincoln bombers due to attack Communist camps in the jungle. But it crashed into a ravine following an engine failure.
A rescue party was forced to bury the victims in a shallow grave near the crash site because of the hostile terrain and risk of attack.