The Irish Adventure of Richard Kukura and Tommy Hulme and the fate of their Beaufighter JL710

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Benny Reilly and George Gault interviewed by Oliver Brady in 1999

An ancient Irish legend tells of the arrival of a mythical race called the Tuatha De Dannan in Sliabh an Iarainn (Slieve Aneiran - the Iron Mountain). One variant of the tale says they came down in a mist while another says they arrived on the mountain in ships.

. . . . . . . . . . On St Patrick’s night, 1943 two men came down through the clouds and mist that covered Sliabh an Iarainn’s sister mountains Cuilcagh and Slieve Rushen. They had abandoned a ‘ship’ of sorts namely an RAF Bristol Beaufighter. The plane continued on and finally came down near another legendary location, St Mogue’s Island in Port Lake. Both plane and crew soon assumed mythical status. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that the crew’s adventures were on a par with those of the Tuatha De Dannan but fact and fiction mingle together to make the incident one of the more enduring episodes of recent folk memory.

What makes the story so intriguing is that, unlike the De Dannan, who stayed around and fought with their new neighbours, Tommy Hulme and Richard Kukura vanished in to The North within hours of landing and had minimal contact with at most ten local people.

The plane and parachutes were the physical evidence of their presence. The Tuatha De Dannan if they even existed have left no evidence and parachutes are not mentioned in the old sagas.

For decades the story fascinated locals. Many myths and assumptions sprung up about its final journey e.g. It was believed that the plane came across the land border, its most likely base being Enniskillen. It was also widely believed that mechanical failure of either engines or controls were responsible for the mishap, in fact it probably ran out of fuel! Even myths about the actual names of the crew emerged, as will be outlined later in my interview with George Gault.

As time passed the plane crash faded from the folk memory. In today’s modern world of instant news it would barely merit a mention. Today we have a very short attention span. Even a major fatal air crash is a ‘three day wonder’. It would take the re-arrival of the Tuatha De Dannan or that of a space ship full of little green men to generate the kind of excitement and interest that the Beaufighter caused.

For local historians the incident has all the ingredients for a great story. It is strange that it took so long for the incident to be investigated. All credit is due to Dennis Burke, John Patterson and David Earle for their efforts but, most of all we are indebted to Richard Kukura for his extremely lucid and detailed account of the plane’s final journey. He has filled in some major pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. It is pity that Tommy Hulme was never able to return here and see where JL710 finally came to rest but we hope Richard and Olga Kukura will do so in the not too distant future. Personally, when Nigel showed me photographs of Tommy and Richard, I felt a sense of privilege in that I’ve seen the images of two men that a whole generation of local people, many of whom have passed away would like to have seen, particularly face to face.

Again from the local history perspective the story is not completely ended,. The absence of Guarda and RUC records is unusual. Were they lost? Or because of wartime censorship and because there were no fatalities was it conveniently airbrushed from official accounts. Army records are very scant but there are some snippets although some enigmas still remain. How much of the plane was officially retrieved? How much might still lie beneath the waters of Port Lake?

While I have heard many stories relating to the 1943 ‘plane crash, I have based this article on tape recordings, conducted in 1999, with Benny O’Reilly and George Gault sadly, now both deceased. To transcribe their stories would take up too much space, so I will describe mostly in my own words what they told me, quoting them verbatim on the more interesting aspects of their stories.

Their versions tally in most details. I will deal with Benny’s version first as he was one of the first men on the scene. I conducted two taped interviews with Benny and for convenience, will mingle excerpts from both.

Interview with Benny Reilly

Benny and his brothers John and Terry were at home that night. In common with others, Benny seems to have special memories of the roar of the incoming ‘plane. He describes his initial experience as follows:

“And then this ‘plane came over . . . . . You’d run out to see a ‘plane at any time that time. They were new fangled and it went across the house and, of course they came running out when they heard it. It disappeared over the back of the house and we’re standing there and back it comes with an odious roar of it. I said, My God, they’re going to bomb us out of it tonight! And we stood down behind the wall of the house and it just tore across the house, do ya know! Heading for Corlough direction, and By Jesus, back it comes again and the roar of it. The pilot you see had baled out. What ever way he left the controls, it was for to circle the ‘plane anyway. It continued to circle and circle ‘til it finally came down.“

Initially Benny thought that it was a bomb attack on the creamery as he heard what he described “as an explosion” coming from that direction. He, Terry and John went to the creamery by bike. It was intact. They then went to Smith’s cross where they met Guard Cassidy and he thought Guard Morgan, (the local policemen). The Guards were in Tommy Mullaly’s car, if Tommy was driving was not established. They concluded that the ‘plane had crashed, but where? Some thought Cor Bog, others Killyran. People were beginning to emerge particularly from local dance halls and excitement was rife. The O’Reilly brothers went off in different directions, with instructions to report back to the Guards, should they find anything. Eventually, they joined up again at the rectory, where they heard from Revd Armstrong and Michael McGovern that the plane had landed on Port Lake beside the little island.

After leaving the rectory they met the Guards again and for a while Benny was “that excited and fearin “that he was unable to remember exactly where the ‘plane was. The O’Reilly’s then went to Donohoe’s of Ray and borrowed the Cot, which they brought out to the Island. Benny must have been even more excited when he rowed out to the scene where he thought he saw “big red letters on the plane stating 250 lbs High Explosive “. On returning to the shore, Benny again met Guard Cassidy who was anxious to get out to the Island. Benny negotiated the loan of Henry Wilcox’s boat and he and Guard Cassidy went back out to the Island.

Next day he came back. In his words “It was getting fierce thronged around these parts”. It would appear that at least five or six local boats were busy plying to and from the Island. One local boatman, probably fed up with all the fuss, began to stipulate who could and who could not get on to his boat. Benny explained that his brother Terry was refused permission to board. He was incensed at this and being a good swimmer, he suggested that he was of a mind to swim out and take the oars off the boat in mid lake leaving boatman and passengers stranded.

We discussed aspects of Salvage for a while. Benny said that John took away lots of little nuts and screws that were later very useful when they were used for repairing horse harnesses. I think webbing was mentioned as well and was probably used for the same purpose. The O’Reilly’s took away lots of bullets. Benny describes them as cannon ammunition. I think they were 20mm machine gun shells. He spoke of some of them being like flares or rockets. They used to detonate them using a vice, hammer and nail. His description of the light emitted from these flares is vague. I think there were actually tracer rounds.

Another aspect, which Benny describes, I find hard to explain. He says that the plane was covered in a luminous substance which would have made it more visible if it was under water. He said that he got this stuff on his overalls. If, ordinarily, the overall were dry, you wouldn’t notice it, however if they got wet, it would light up as if one had “poured white or fresh blue paint on them”

These are just some of the snippets that Benny related to me.

Oliver Brady Interview with Georgie Gault

George Gault’s version corresponds with Benny O’Reilly’s in many ways. He was at home in bed that night and heard the “Sound of a plane ‘hovering’ about and an awful hum and an awful buzz”.

Ballyconnell Fair was on the next day where George and his father had gone to sell cattle. The main topic on the way to Ballyconnell was the ‘plane crash. According to George, the news spread through the fair “like wildfire”. Naturally, George could hardly wait to get back to the crash scene from the fair. He and his friend Willie Wilcox went out to the Island in a boat that they co-owned. The scene was “Like a picnic . . . like a football match”. Quoting George again; “The plane was upside down in the water. It came in and caught in the tops of the trees and somersaulted”. George said that he could see the ‘plane’s machine guns lying in the water.

We dealt for a while with salvage operations carried out by George and his friends. They went out several times in the days following the crash and retrieved various items including copper flasks. They brought these home, “Reddened them in the fire” and successfully converted them into fishing baits with which they caught many pike.

They also engaged in another more dangerous type of recycling. Owing to the scarcity of shotgun cartridges, they attempted to use the gunpowder from the twenty millimetre machine gun bullets in used shotgun cartridge cases. They packed the powder into the cartridge followed by lead shot obtained from the local creamery. (This lead shot was used for testing the butterfat content in milk.) George describes the venture into the munitions business like this:

‘You know what we were after. There were no cartridges here, the Emergence was on . . . We thought if could salvage all these bullets which were in brass cases we could empty them and fill our own cartridges.’ George went on to explain that he removed what he called the ‘anvil’ from the used shotgun cartridge. I presume what he described as the ‘anvil’ was the percussion detonation cap. He then replaced this with a toy cap from a child’s cap gun. It was now time to test the new invention. George loaded his shot gun and fired it. The result? According to George “ it let off a kind of a ‘whoof ‘ and the lead shot fell out on the grass and burned up in front of me.”

Later, while talking to soldiers who were stationed at Bellnacur bridge he told them what he’d been up to. Needless to say they were not impressed, telling him how lucky he was, a soldier explained that the toy gun cap had not been strong enough to detonate the powder. Gunpowder for rifles and machine guns requires a far more powerful detonation charge than that used in shotgun cartridges. A soldier commented, “So that’s what you were doing, trying to make cartridges. Well you are a very lucky man that’s standing there this evening. The cap you had in the cartridge wasn’t strong enough to explode what you had in the gun. If it had been strong enough neither you nor the gun would be here. You’s were playing with fire.”

George also told me, that Terry Reilly Benny’s brother was going away with the radio transmitter but the soldiers took it from him. Terry was very technically minded and possibly might have succeeded where Tommy Hulme had failed.

Mention of Tommy Hulme brings me to a peculiar aspect of George’s story. George and a friend found and read what appears to have been a logbook detailing flights of the Beaufighter. He says that the crewmen’s names were Hume and Hulmey. But he does not mention Richard Kukura or a similar name. For a very observant man it is strange that he got the names so wrong. It was not until 2004 that I found out their real names!

So ends a minute sample of snippets of what is, arguably, one of the most exciting nights in the history of the area.

Oliver Brady 13th June 2006