The Buckden Pike Memorial: How a fox helped save the life of an airman who crashed in the Yorkshire Dales

In the late morning the Wellington encountered a snowstorm and, lacking sophisticated navigation technology the crew descended in search of a landmark.

However, they failed to recognise the town of Skipton and continued northwards at the same altitude, unaware they were heading into the Yorkshire Dales.

That lunchtime villagers in Kettlewell and Starbotton heard an aircraft which some later recalled thinking sounded too low.

The by-now howling blizzard obliterated the noise of the Wellington hitting the northern shoulder of 2,303ft. high Buckden Pike.

Joe Fusniak was in the rear gun turret, which became separated from the fuselage on impact. When he opened the hatch and fell into the snow he felt massive pain from a broken ankle.

He crawled around the wreckage and found just one other survivor, the radio operator, who was covered in blood and groaning.

Despite his injury, Fusniak dragged himself through deep snowdrifts in search of help, following footprints he believed were left by a fox and hoping it would have gone in search of food and shelter.

By dusk he had descended to the hamlet of Cray, where his shouts for help were heard.

A doctor came up from Grassington, but when a rescue team reached the wreckage they found no one alive.

Fusniak said later that his life had been saved by the fox.

When his son, Richard, built a memorial to the crew in 1973 a bronze fox head was cemented to the foot of the cross. Joe died in 2017.