The gathering took place at the memorial to the aircrew who died when their Lockheed Hudson aircraft crashed into the hill on 11th February 1940.
The aircraft took off from Thornaby-on-Tees at 04:10 and failed to gain suffient height due to ice forming on the wings. It clipped the escarpment, ploughing on through a drystone wall and ended up in the plantation of larch trees in the distance in the distance.
Three of the aircrew died, Flying Officer Tom Parker, Sergeant Harold Berksley and Corporal Norman Drury. The fourth, Leading Aircraftman Athol Barker survived but crawling down to a nearby farm at Easby only to be shot down three years later whilst flying over Germany.
Above the cloud which blanketed the vale of Cleveland, the sun shone, the bugle sounded, the poem “For the Fallen” recited, and, for the briefest of moments, Roseberry poked its head out of the cloud.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
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