Black Peak

Written by:

Karl Smári Hreinsson and Hjálmtýr Heiðdal.

Director: Hjálmtýr Heiðdal.

Coproduction: Saga Akademia

Duration: 52 minutes.

Release: 2015

In the Fossvogur Military Cemetery in Reykjavik Iceland there are 6 gravestones with the names of the crew of a Wellington bomber that in 1941 crashed into Svartahnjúk (Black Peak) mountain in West Iceland.

But the rescue team only found 4 bodies.

The documentary Black Peak - a war story, tells us how the Second World War collided with the peaceful countryside in Eyrarsveit county and how the legend of the crew and the airplane have lived on for more than 70 years.

In November 1941, a British Wellington bomber with a crew of six crashed into Svartahnjúk (Black Peak) mountain in Kolgrafafjord in Eyrarsveit county.

The aircraft belonged to the 221st Royal Air Force Squadron and was returning from a submarine search in the ocean between Greenland and Iceland. It was winter darkness and bad weather, and the pilots lost their heading.

As the airplane circulated over the town of Stykkishólmur, witnesses sent a message to the military in Reykjavik that the aircraft was in distress, "It cruised abovethe village and shot out emergency flares ... The pilot tried to fly over the mountain ridge to the south. The airplane crashed into a mountain ... and exploded and the flames were visible from afar. "

British troops arrived at Kolgrafarfjord to search for the aircraft and the crew with the help of the local people. It was a group of farmers in Eyrarsveit county that climbed the Svartihnjúkur mountains and discovered the plane wreck and the bodies of four crewmembers.

They never found two bodies, but they found two open parachutes near Hrafnagil canyon, a 100 meter deep gully. The farmers presumed that the airmen had fallen into the canyon and died there. The canyon is deep and no one has ever climbed down into it.

In the film, we interview old people from Eyrarsveit County who witnessed the plane crash and the search. We meet some of the English RAF members who served in the 221st Sqd. in Iceland. We film as the Mountain Rescue team from Grundarfjordur climb into Hrafnagil to look for the remains of the missing crewmembers.

Iceland was a rather isolated country in the early 20th century. Life in rural areas was largely unchanged from previous centuries, and there were places where few of the inventions of the 20th Century had made their mark.

In the remote Eyrarsveit County in Snæfellsnes peninsula, the old time roads were bad, paths and gravel roads connected the farms. The phone was an unfamiliar tool and radio was in its infancy. On Sundays, local people attended church, and the farmers discussed prospects and exchanged news on what was considered newsworthy beyond the daily routine.

World War II changed everything; suddenly Iceland was flooded with foreign soldiers bringing their weapons and vehicles. And Eyrarsveit County was the scene of events that still live in the memory of the people.

Black Peak

- a War Story

Watch the trailer for Black Peak

Supported by

The Icelandic Filmcentre.

Consultant: Martin Schlüter