Black & white photograph of Mrs Revilliod and Grace Campbell of Tullymet, Gott, at the graveside of Flt. Lt. Leonard Revilliod who was killed in a mid-air collision over Island House in August 1944.
Courtesy of Mrs Grace Campbell
On the 16th August 1944, two Halifax aircraft from 518 Squadron took off for air tests before their usual nightly weather reconnaissance flights. They lost sight of each other in patchy cloud and collided, killing all on board.
An eyewitness on the top of Ben Hynish reported seeing one plane taking off while the other was coming in. ‘They appeared to come so close to each other that they tipped wings…and the next thing the two of them went up in flames and you could see the wheels with the tyres burning and falling right to the ground…’
One of those killed was Flight Lieutenant Leonard Revilliod, a grandson of the Czechoslovakian Prime Minister, Jan Masyrak, who flew with his daughter-in-law to Tiree for the funeral. The photograph shows Grace Campbell and Mrs Revilliod at her son’s graveside at Soroby in Balemartine.