The long journey to goodbye

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Chaffey walks in front of the RAF men carrying the coffin with the remains of the crash victims at the reburial ceremony on March 15, 2012. — Pictures by Choo Choy May 

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 — The morning was slightly damp with a light mist when I arrived at the Cheras Road Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery. It felt almost like a crisp English spring morning. How fitting then that this would be the day the 11 British crash victims of the Royal Air Force Dakota KN630 that crashed in 1950 would be buried. 

Family members of the dead servicemen lay wreaths at the grave. 

For more than 60 years they were buried in a shallow grave near the crash site in Kelantan. One of the Malayan passengers who also perished in the crash, Mohammed Abdul, was reburied in his hometown in Johor last year.

The flight was on a target-marking mission that fateful day. Nine days later, a rescue party reached the crash site on foot to discover that all 12 members of the crew and passengers had died.

Some of the family members of those men flew in from the UK to do what they could not do all those years ago... pay their final respects to their loved ones.

Representatives of the British and Malaysian Defence Ministry, the Malaysian Army Museum, the Royal Malaysian Police Museum, the National Malaya and Borneo Veterans Association together with the Ex-British Army Association of Malaysia were in attendance, with Reverend (RAF Group Captain) Jonathan Chaffey conducting the service.

Years may have gone by but the memories were fresh this morning and some family members were seen crying silently.

“It was a beautiful service, it was done very well,” said Vickie Betsworth, sister of Royal Army Service Corps despatcher Corporal Philip Bryant. She was 15 when her brother died in the air crash.

For the family members, it has been a long journey. When they received news of the air crash, they were unable to attend any funeral or visit a grave. Finally after so many years and with the amazing efforts of the UK Ministry of Defence and Malaysian authorities, there was a chance to say a last goodbye.

It was poignant and beautiful: when members of the Queen’s Colour Squadron and 47th Squadron of the Royal Air Force carried the coffin to the grave, and when the service was conducted and “The Last Post” was played. 

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