First, let me tell you about a plane crash ... on the 23rd
of August 1945, just several days after the end of WW2, the RAF Liberator KL654R (a B24
bomber of the South East Asia Command (SEAC) 356 Squadron) and 8 crew members
took off from Cocos Island, about 1000km south of Sumatra heading towards
Malaysia. They were on a mission to drop supplies and leaflets announcing the
surrender of Japan and the end of the war. Sadly, it turned out to be their
final mission ... the plane and its crew members crashed into the deep jungle of
Negeri Sembilan.
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| The RAF Liberator KL654R (photo sourced from internet) |
According to sources from the internet, the crash site was
discovered by local orang asli during the 1950s and reported it to the
authorities. However no action was taken to excavate the crash site until 1991
when a group of orang asli while gathering rattan stumbled upon main fuselage
and took the plane’s machine guns to the Kuala Pilah police station. This
prompted a military search which located the crash site with the help of a local
orang asli called Pak Abu. Pak Abu originally heard the story of the Liberator
crash from his father who actually saw black smoke and explosion of the plane as
it crashed into the jungle.
Subsequently several groups organized various expeditions to
the crash site and in 2007 MHG (Malaya Historical Group) together with Ed Macy
(former Apache pilot) and Clayton Ford (police detective) made another expedition
to the crash site. In this expedition, they did a thorough excavation of the
site and discovered many bone fragments as well as personal items such as
rings, spectacles, coins, dagger, dog tag and a water canteen.
Later the bone fragments were DNA tested to confirm their
identities and on 18 October 2012, the remains of the 8 crew members of
Liberator KL654R, Flight Lieutenant John Selwyn Watts, 158017, Flying
Officer Edward Donald Mason, 166082, Flying Officer William Kenneth
Dovey, 166352, Flight Sergeant Jack Blakey, 1582692, Flight Sergeant
William Ross, 2213814, Flight Sergeant Raymond Arthur Towell,
1624252, Flying Officer J.T. Bromfield, 166369 and Flight Sergeant A.
Turner, 1621393 were buried with full military honours at the Cheras Road Cemetery
... 67 years after they crashed.
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| The RAF Liberator KL654R's crew members buried with full military honours (photo sourced from the internet) |
Now, about the trek ... from fellow trekkers we heard that
there is a trail leading to the Liberator’s crash site and after gathering more
information from the internet, we learned the trail starts from the peak of
Gunung Telapak Buruk, a mountain in Negeri Sembilan. So, on the 6
th
of July, 2013 we decided to make an attempt to trek to the crash site.
Let me tell how to get to the peak of Gunung Telapak Buruk
first. Take the LEKAS highway, head towards Ampangan and after getting out of
Ampangan toll plaza drive pass Pantai and you will be driving on Route 86
heading towards Jelebu (Kuala Klawang).
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| Welcome to Jelebu District sign |
On this route, look out for a small red Chinese temple by
the road side on the left. As soon as you see the temple, slow down and about half
a kilometer uphill, you will see a sign welcoming you to the Jelebu district ...TURN RIGHT HERE. Once you turned right, just before the sign, you
will see a road going uphill ... this is the road to the peak of Gunung Telapak
Buruk.
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| Road going up to the peak | |
Now, this road is 12km long all the way up and it is not a well maintained
road so a 4-wheel drive vehicle will be very ideal ... if not, I suggest you
drive an old car which you are not too worried when it is thumped by thuds and
bumps on the long way up.
It takes about 40 minutes to drive carefully up to the peak
of Gunung Telapak Buruk ... once you reached the peak you will see a few
telecommunication towers and at the end of the road, right in front of you,
there is an army facility which you are not allow to go further. There are
painted oil barrels blocking the road and the facility is guarded by soldiers.
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| The trail starts from the left side of the fenced up telecommunication tower |
Park your car here and you will see a fenced up telecommunication
tower at the side of the road. If you are facing at the fenced up tower, the trail
starts just on the left the tower, along the fence. Once you go in along the
fence, you will get into the jungle and the trail starts downwards.
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| Fallen trees along the way |
OK, back to the trek ... from what we heard, this trail is
full of leeches ... so we came prepared and well ‘sprayed” all over with tobacco
water and Baygon but my favorite is still MossiGuard ... proven to be very effective
against leeches.
As we are trekking from the peak, we started downwards,
beginning with a long slope. Then the trail evens out a bit before it comes to another
slope. After that, the undulating trail goes up and down crossing a few valleys.
There are plastic ribbon markers left by previous trekkers but because all of
us were first timers to this trail, we left a paper trail as an additional
safety measure. The trek was quite easy as we were mainly trekking downwards and
apart from a few fallen trees and stubborn scrubs there were no major obstacles
along the way. The cooling mountain breeze also reduced the humidity and made
the trek a lot more enjoyable. Also, on this day, the birds were particularly
merrier entertaining us with chirps and whistles all morning.
For most of the journey, we trek along the side of valleys
and as we get deeper, we walked in the middle of ridges. Old school trekkers like
us don’t carry gadgets ... so by experience we guessed (errr ... accuracy not
guaranteed ya) we must have trekked about 7km after walking for about an hour
and forty minutes when we came to a clear open area in the middle of a ridge.
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| Part of the aircraft's wing |
We
were told the location of the crash site is very near this open area. So, we started
to look around and very soon, we saw it ... on the left just about 3 meters
down the ridge, we saw a metal structure embedded into the ground and though rather
battered, we can see that it is a section of the crashed aircraft’s wing. Then we
saw a trail on the right of the open area ... this is the trail that leads to the
main wreckage of the RAF Liberator KL654R at the bottom of the valley. The plane
was believed to have hit a tree, broke a wing which was embedded on one side
of the ridge and the rest of the plane crashed into the valley on the other
side of the ridge.
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| The plane's tyre ... still inflated |
We then trekked down about a hundred meters to the main wreckage and along the way
we saw many metal airplane parts scattered everywhere. We can see this site has been cleared
by previous visitors as it was quite easy to move along the wreckage looking at
the various huge remnants of the RAF Liberator KL654R ... we saw what used to
be the fuselage, a tyre which is still inflated (war plane tyres are inflated
or solid?) and many other parts which we are not familiar with. There is a
small stream (which is said to be the source and beginning of Sungai Muar) and moving
along the stream we saw more parts of the wreckage ... a tail section of the
plane with its ‘R’ alphabet, melted aluminium chunks (which give an idea how
hot it must have burned when the plane crashed) and many other metal and
aluminium parts of the plane.
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| The tail section of the plane |
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| A part of the fuselage |
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| Various parts of of the plane scattered around the crash site |
We spent 45 exciting minutes looking around the wreckage
and taking many photos of this historic crash site. Though we were all talking
excitedly about the wreckage, I am very sure that there was a silent moment in our
hearts where we pay tribute to the 8 crew members who perished in this
unfortunate event.
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| A photo opportunity at the historic crash site |
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| Checking out the wreckage |
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| This is a huge part of the fuselage |
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| Looking around the crash site |
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| Taking plenty of photos |
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| Group photo (L-R) ... Leong, Hoh, Choon Lan, Ooi, Shiek, Keat, Ms Yap and Ah Seng |
Then it was time to leave ... we climbed up to the open area
and after a short rest and a quick bite, we then started to trek out of the
jungle. By now it was already noon and the jungle air began to heat up and getting
humid. We needed more rest stops as we were all quite tired trekking upwards to
the peak of Gunung Telapak Buruk. It was a tough return leg ... especially the
last couple of long upwards stretches. The first few of us took more than two hours to get
out of the jungle and by the time we reached our vehicles, we were exhausted
... it took another twenty minutes for rest of the group to make it out safely.
After taking off our trekking gears and a short rest, we drove
to a water source about halfway down for good cool wash and freshen up. By
the time we cleaned ourselves, our empty stomachs were asking to be filled. As
usual, a good exercise deserves a good reward ... wasting no time, we drove to Seremban
town for a well-known delicious bowl of fish ball noodle.
On our way home, though quite tired, we were still talking excitingly
about our trek. Not only did we spend a good day trekking and enjoying the
nature ... we also visited a historic place, experienced a piece of its history
and have a great story to tell our family and friends.
You know what? Gunung Telapak Buruk is definitely another
mountain on my favorite trekking list.
