Thursday 04 May 2023 at 19h30.
When our plane hit the mountain. (Book title by Suzanne Barnes; Quand notre avion heurta la montagne French translation by Catherine Pizon).
The history surrounding the events of an aircraft crash on 12 August 1946.
21 French Girlguides and a crew of five miraculously escaped death when their Junkers 52 crashed dramatically on Djouce mountain in the Wicklow/Dublin mountain range.
The talk describes the adventures and bravery of occupants of the aircraft who left the crash site to report the accident and seek urgent help for their injured colleagues. Neither Dublin or Paris Air Traffic Control knew of the aircraft’s disappearance.
The weather was atrocious with a violent storm raging before the accident and during the massive rescue operation.
Talk will be less than one hour duration.
About bill
Worked in the technical / engineering area as a Science Laboratory Technician and as an Aeronautics Engineer.
The artistic side involves writing under the nom de plume of Billy Olsenn, his recently written play 'A Case of Wine' was staged by the players group Straight Make-Up at the 2012 Birr one act drama festival. It's next staging was in the one act circuit is in Cavan, at Maudebawn on Sat 10 Nov 2012. Then it was performed in the Bray, Co.Wicklow at the very popular one act festival in January 2013.
Next play is FEAR. A dark tale about revenge on the cruel death of two pensioners by young thugs. Neighbours hatch a devious and dangerous plan to exact old-style revenge. Bill is a member of the Drama League of Ireland and his plays have been critically vetted and certified as original pieces of work by the DLI.
Another literary project is that of commemoration of an aircraft crash on Djouce mountain in Wicklow in 1946. Bill wrote articles for the 50th, 60th and most recently the 70th anniversary, (12 Aug
2016) all were published in the Wicklow Times and ensured the survivors of the crash, all French Girl Guides, were not forgotten. Articles reproduced on this website.
But mostly this site gives a more general European and specific French slant on popular and not so popular articles of French news, translated to English by the author. Each article is translated on a paragraph by paragraph basis so easy to read in either language and even possible to improve either language by comparison of the short English and French paragraphs. Amusez vous bien.
The author is currently writing an easy to read technical aviation book centered around the Fokker 50.
Another interest is that dealt with in another of Bill's websites www.realnamara.net, a Statue of the mother of God, Mary. It was erected in 1972 in Dublin, at the end of the Bull Wall near Clontarf, and my grandfather William Nelson, was the main instigator of that project. I give talks on the history of the statue and my grandfather's adventurous and dangerous life at sea.
Technical assistance with each website is by J O'N.
