CLEE Hill is a place of great beauty but is perhaps less well known as the graveyard of many airmen from the Second World War.

During the war, 23 airmen lost their lives in nine crashes, which are still remembered by older people.

The airmen who died were British, American and German and not all of the bodies are thought to have been completely recovered.

It is believed that the first aircraft to go down was a Junkers 88 German bomber, which crashed on April 1, 1944. Exactly what the aircraft was doing over south Shropshire is not known but it may have been on a mission to attack cities in the north east such as Manchester or docks in Liverpool.

It is known that two Wellington bombers went down over Clee Hill and the remains of one of them still lies in a lake on the hill.

The Wellington was a heavy twin-engine bomber used extensively by the RAF in the early years of the war until it was eclipsed by larger four engine bombers – the Hadley Page Halifax and the legendary Avro Lancaster.

A single engine Hawker Typhoon, a fighter-bomber used by the RAF, was lost on Clee Hill, as were two twin engine Avro Anson multipurpose aircraft.

It is believed that the last aircraft to meet its end on Clee Hill was a US Air Force B17 Flying Fortress bomber.

It was on a non-operational flight on the afternoon ofn November 24, 1944.

Sleet and snow was falling and it was off course. It is believed that the pilot was trying to get himself orientated when, in low cloud, he found himself flying towards a quarry face. An eye-witness account reports that he put the engines on full power in an attempt to pull clear but one of the bomber’s wings clipped the ground.

All six people on board died, one in an ambulance on the way to Ludlow Hospital.

In 1981, a memorial made from part of an old billiard table used by the RAF was erected on the hill.

Recently, members of the Cleobury Mortimer branch of the Royal British Legion attended a short ceremony at the memorial.

Several Legion branches were represented among the gathering of 60 men and women, but Cleobury’s was the only standard, proudly held by Charles Watkins despite some strong winds.

The ceremony, conducted by Rev Jenny Rowland, vicar of St John’s, Ditton Priors, included contributions from the Air Crew Association and Philippa Hodgkiss, the driving force behind the erection of the memorial in 1981.

A work by Cleobury poet David Walford was also read.

During the ceremony, five wreaths were laid around the memorial, and a flypast by an RAF helicopter provided the closing moment.

Public footpaths, which criss-cross Clee Hill, can be used to reach the memorial