|
Our
village sign commemorates a Lancaster, JB659. OF-J JB659 was an Avro Lancaster of 97 Squadron, and in January 1944 was stationed at RAF Bourn. At precisely ten past five, on the afternoon of January 30th 1944, JB659 took off from Bourn airfield as part of a mass bombing raid on Berlin. The Lancaster was fuelled up for a possible 2000 mile round trip, and carried a bomb load of five two-thousand pounders, as well as marker flares. There were seven crew on board:
The crew had been together for some tirne and had established a companionship not unusual under wartime conditions. There was always a certain amount of horseplay on their return frorn missions, and Charles Price, at 30 as the oldest mernber of the crew, was affectionately known as Dad! The Lancaster headed out over the Norfolk coast to rendezvous with aircraft drawn from other airfields in the N. East. The armada then crossed the German coast just south of the border with Denmark, before heading south-east to the target area. Several aircraft fell prey to the Gerrnan air defenccs on the way out, and were seen to plunge down to earth in flames. JB659 survived and completed her mission. The pilot turned onto a heading to take the Lancaster on the first leg of the journey back to Bourn, a journey which, tragically, was not to be completed. As the aircraft neared the Dutch coast, a Messerschmitt night-fighter dived out of thc night sky and attacked the bomber. The Lancaster stood no chance against the firepower and superior manoeuvrability of the Messerschmitt, and the encounter ended when the cockpit of the Lancaster was blasted away from the fuselage and hurtled down to earth, taking the bodies of the pilot and the bornb aimer with it. The remainder of the plane, with two of the four engines still running, crashed in flames onto a farmhouse, some five miles south of Amsterdam, killiing the farmer and his family. The bodies of Allan Hart and Gordon Williams were recovered bv the Germans, and buried in the local cemetery at Zwanenburg, where the graves are now cared for by Rosalind Emerson, a Norfolk lady now living in Holland. The bodies of the Dutch family were also recovered and buried at Zwanenburg. The other five members of the crew of JB659 were however buried deep inside the fuselage at the crash site, and had remained so for some 57 years. Just over a year ago plans were in hand to build a marina, and as the work involved the site of the 1944 crash, a Royal Dutch Airforce Salvage Team was called to excavate the wreckage and recover the remains of the five airmen. The salvage team worked under hazardous conditions as there was a strong possibility that explosives and live ammunition still remained in the wreckage. Emotionally also they had a hard time, as poignant reminders of both the airmen and the occupants of the farmhouse were unearthed. Scraps of clothing, a child's shoe, parts of an airforce uniform and several coins, recalled the ordinary human lives that had ended so tragically at that spot. Human bones were eventually retrieved and sent to a Dutch laboratory. Careful and methodical examination showed that five bodies had indeed been recovered, although they could not be individually identified. After consultations with known relatives, it was decided to bury the five crewmen in a shared grave next to their comrades in the cemetery at Zwanenburg. The Dutch team salvaged as much of the wreckage as possible. Various aeronautical museums and interested institutions in this country were contacted, and expressed a wish to have specific pieces of the aeroplane. The Rural Flying Corps were delighted to accept the offer of one of the Lancaster's four propellers. On Friday January 19th of this year, six men from the Dutch team arrived at Bourn airfield, and handed over the twisted remains of the propeller. After 57 years buried in foreign soil, it had finally returned to the airfield from which it had set out on its last journey. It is proposed to clean up the propeller and coat it with a preservative. It will then be mounted on a simple concrete plinth, together with a plaque, also a gift from the Dutch airmen, recording the names of the seven men who perished in their stricken aircraft. It will be, we hope, a fitting tribute to just seven of the gallant men who, during the second world war, took off from Bourn airfield - and never returned. © 2001, Muriel Harris R.F.C. Bourn |