NETHERLANDS - Herkenbosch

From an article in the Grimsby Telegraph by Patrick Otter 24 July 2015


The beautiful setting of the Herkenbosch memorial. The propeller is from a Wellington bomber


At last! A lasting tribute to the thousands of young airmen who died flying from Lincolnshire

see www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/lasting-tribu...y.html#ixzz3zax9h57n

IT'S been a long time coming.

But in early autumn Lincolnshire will finally pay its lasting tribute to the thousands upon thousands of young airmen who died flying from the county between 1939 and 1945.

The grandly-titled International Bomber Command Centre is now taking shape quite dramatically on Canwick Hill on the outskirts of Lincoln, overlooking the city and the Cathedral which became such a symbol for all those who flew from the county during the Second World War.

Dominating the site is the steel memorial spire – exactly the size of the wing of a Lancaster bomber – and there will be a large visitors' centre (named in honour of the designer of the Lancaster), and extensive gardens. It is here that visitors will be able to walk among the starkest reminder of Lincolnshire's role in the war, the names of some 25,992 members of the RAF who gave their lives during the conflict.

The vast majority were killed on operations from the county from the very first bombing raids in September 1939 to the final attacks at the end of April 1945.

The names themselves have been taken from the three special memorial books which have been kept in the Airmen's Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral, one each for 1 and 5 Groups of Bomber Command which were stationed in Lincolnshire, and a third recording those killed while serving with bomber training units.

The names are etched on curved steel plates and there will be rows upon rows of them, stretching across the hillside which lays only a couple of miles or so from RAF Waddington, which saw the highest losses of any airfield in Britain.

They will be in simple alphabetical order, recording the names of those killed breaching the Ruhr dams to those who died in airfield accidents, of those who perished above the cauldron of Berlin to the handful of members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force whose work kept the airfields functioning and whose deaths are listed simply as 'on active service'.

The names include some of the most famous to have served in the RAF – Guy Gibson, who led the Dambusters and then died flying a Mosquito from Woodhall Spa, John Nettleton VC, the leader of a daring low-level daylight attack on Augsburg only to be killed in a raid on Turin, David Holford who won a DSO for attacking the Scharnhorst and later became CO of 100 Squadron at Waltham, killed when his aircraft crashed near Kelstern in fog on his return from Berlin.

The overwhelming majority, however, record the men who never made the headlines, those who volunteered for one of the most dangerous tasks on earth (every man who flew in Bomber Command was a volunteer) and who now rest in war cemeteries from Poland to Portugal, from Italy to Norway.

They came from all walks of life, university students, school teachers, bank clerks, factory workers, farmers and from a host of countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand of course, but also Poland, Argentina, India, the USA, Holland and even a few from Germany itself, Jewish refugees in the main.

Typical of them was Ian Wynn. He was a Staffordshire man who had spent time as a forestry worker before trying his hand as a Prudential salesman, selling electrical goods and finally becoming a fitter's assistant.

He had been born back in 1908, was married with two sons and was already well into his 30s when he volunteered for the RAF soon after war broke out, half as old again as many of those around him.

His story was typical of many at the time. The RAF was virtually engulfed in volunteers and many had to wait months, or in some cases years, before finally being sent for.

His call came in October 1940 when he went to the recruit training centre at Padgate, on the outskirts of Warrington.

With his background in engineering, he was selected for training as an engine fitter and then followed a series of brief moves around the country, including a spell at Tenby in Wales before he arrived in Lincolnshire for the first time at Cranwell.

It was during this period that he applied for aircrew training. The advent of heavy bombers meant there was now an urgent need for a new breed of airmen – flight engineers – and he fitted the mould perfectly.

It was then back to Wales and RAF St Athan for a flight engineers' course in October 1942 before he was promoted to sergeant and posted to 12 Squadron of Bomber Command, arriving at Binbrook just as the squadron was moving to the new airfield at Wickenby, near Market Rasen, where it would convert from twin-engined Wellingtons to the new Lancaster.

At Wickenby he and his crew, which was headed by the experienced Squadron Leader Ken Stammers DFM and included Canadian navigator Henry Petts, bomb aimer Gordon Russel, wireless operator James Marnoch and gunners Dennis Harvey and John Hudson, trained on the new Lancaster, champing at the bit while waiting for their first operation.

His diary for the period recorded his thoughts, perhaps along with many others eager to begin their operational career – "a bit duff today", "getting browned off" were typical entries.

Finally, on December 28, 1942, his crew prepared for that first 'op', only for it to be cancelled at the last minute. "Everyone annoyed," he wrote. His chance finally came on January 3 when his crew was set to drop mines in the waters off the Biscay ports.

He later wrote he was "a bit disappointed" with the experience although he noted how many lights he could see in France. Then came a trip to Essen before his crew went on leave.

Reality kicked in when they returned. Three Wickenby crews – 21 men – were missing in action. It was a good posting for the crew, 12 Squadron was a highly-efficient one and they quickly came to know the area around Wickenby, particularly the local pubs where those in nearby Wragby were amongst their favourites.

In March 1943 his crew, which by now had flown around 20 operations, was one of a handful posted to Waltham to join the newly reformed 100 Squadron, which was about to start flying Lancasters from what used to be Grimsby's municipal airport.

S/Ldr Stammers became 100's B Flight commander. For one of the crew, gunner Sgt John Hudson, it was to be very much a 'home' posting – before joining the RAF he lived with his wife in Dudley Street, Grimsby, some four miles from the airfield at Waltham.

The crew was to fly a handful of operations from Waltham before the powers-that-be decided it was time for Ken Stammers to step back from the sharp end of the bomber war.

He was posted to a training unit at Lichfield (he survived the war only to be killed in a flying accident at Linton-on-Ouse in 1946) and his crew was 'passed on' to 22-year-old S/Ldr Philip Turgel DFC, another experienced pilot who had just arrived at Waltham to take command of 100's C Flight.

On the night of May 23 he took his new crew on a raid on Dortmund, part of a force of 826 aircraft which attacked the city in the Ruhr Valley, their aircraft, LM320 HW-C, being the first back to Waltham from an attack which saw all the RAF Grimsby crews return safely although Bomber Command's losses amounted to 38 aircraft.

The following night he was at the controls again when this time the target was Dusseldorf.

The raid was something of a disaster for Bomber Command, the bombing was scattered and inaccurate and 27 bombers were lost.

Two of them were from Waltham, HW-J and Turgel's HW-C, both crashing in Holland close to the German border. There were two survivors from HW-J but all on board the second Lancaster perished, including Sgt Ian Wynn. His family was later told the aircraft had been hit by flak and crashed near the village of Vlodrop, just on the Dutch side of the border. Later investigations discovered this was not the case, LM320 had been shot down by Luftwaffe night-fighter ace Hptm Manfred Meurer, one of 65 victims he claimed before being killed himself when his fighter collided with a Lancaster over Berlin.

The actual crash site was close to the village of Herkenbosch, which is just across the border from what later became RAF Bruggen during the Cold War.

The area around the crash was initially sealed off by the Germans and it transpired they were able to identify only two of those on board the aircraft, the remaining five being buried together in a collective grave. It would be April 1946 that Ian Wynn's wife was finally told that her husband had been killed. In one of those quirks of fortune, her husband had left Waltham on the night of May 24 a sergeant and by the time his death was confirmed had been promoted to the rank of pilot officer.

The story does not end there. Ian Wynn's two sons, David and Tony, decided to mark the 70th anniversary of his death by visiting the crash site in Holland in 2013.

They were put in touch with the Beckers, a Dutch family in Herkenbosch who had researched the numerous RAF crash sites in this corner of Holland.

They found eyewitnesses to the crash and, using metal detectors, located part of the wreckage of Waltham's LM320.

When the Wynn brothers arrived at Herkenbosch they were overwhelmed by the reception they received.

The local hotel gave them free accommodation and they found that the whole village had banded together to erect a memorial, not only to LM320, but to several other RAF aircraft which crashed nearby.

One of these is Lancaster ND973 KM-A of 44 Squadron, one of six aircraft lost in a single night from Dunholme Lodge, near Lincoln, in June 1944 during an attack on a Ruhr oil refinery.

The villagers had managed to obtain parts of an engine from a Wellington bomber together with a propeller and mounted them at the entrance to the village together with plaques listing the 27 RAF aircrew who died close to Herkenbosch.

The whole village turned out for the dedication of the memorial together with representatives from the RAF and the Royal Dutch Air Force.

The local mayor was there together with other civic dignitaries, the village band played the national anthems (they had practised the British one for a fortnight to ensure they got it right) and local schoolchildren laid wreaths at the new memorial.

It was fitting that the task of unveiling the memorial plaque was left to the brothers of Pilot Officer Ian Wynn.

David Wynn said later that the feelings of the villagers of Herkenbosch were summarised in part of an e-mail he received from the Becker family.

It stated: 'We would like to thank you on behalf of the whole community for what your father and his crew members did for us to end the occupation our parents and grandparents were living under during the Second World War.'

Today then seven men who last stood on a dispersal pan on Waltham airfield are commemorated on a memorial built by Dutch villagers whose families they never met but will never forget the sacrifice they, and the 25,985 others on Lincolnshire's own tribute to Bomber Command, made in the name of freedom.