Lancaster III LM368 - 101 Squadron

Were you able to find anything on him and his crew for the night of Aug.12/13, 1944. If the September action is recorded as his second kill, I guess my Dad's aircraft would have been his first.

Leslie

 

Leslie he and the crew are not mentioned at all for the August night using the listings from Freiburg. I do know that I have some gaps in my data base but so does Freiburg in their listings kept overall...........Theo may say otherwise for his book with a more detailed first hand source(s).

let me do a search for dates previous to August, there just might be something there, as the arithmetic does not always add up correctly either when it comes to the number of claims

E ~

 

Wow more things to check now. I will keep focussed on Dec 3rd, that's hard enough.
I have no claims from NJG1 for that night for a start.

 

Good morning Skipper.

The mission date is actually December 2, 1943 if that helps. It was to Berlin.

Thanks

Leslie

 

Hello Leslie, I was away a few days to Normandy but I'm back on track. The reason why I am checking Dec 3rd attacks is because they happened after midnight, so it's actually the night from Dec 2nd to 3rd. The casualties are recorded on Dec 3rd.

 

Mathers' : DFC recommandation here: http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/awm192/00319/003190906.pdf

more to come.

 

alright here we go ......maybe .........looks to be almost 50/50 as to whom in the LW scored on the 2nd and also on the 3rd of December 1943. there are no kills reported by NJG 1 at all for either night, the second or the third.

2 for II./NJG 2
Lent scored 2 from Stab./NJG 3
1 from I./NJG 3
9 from II./NJG 3
4 from III./NJG 3
2 from IV./NJG 3
2 B-17's from W. Herget of I./NJG 4
3 from I./NJG 5
6 from II./NJG 5
2 from III./NJG 5
4 from IV./NJG 5
and I have given I believe the claims from JG 300 and JG 302

 

Hey Leslie!
it's great following this story, thanks so much for sharing! also i told my Father about this story and he wanted me to have you Thank your father for his service. (my Father was a small boy in Holland, and the Canadians liberated them!) so Thank you very much!

 

hey bigfun anymore on the date - time-month yet from your relatives...... ?

 

Northern Holland was liberated on May 8th 1945 and the Candians were the first to move in there. Before that they were more or less on a south west and the south front line going from the rhine to Arhnem. This however explains why the Dutch particulary appreciate RCAF crews because Canada is linked to their liberty, even if the other nationalities in the Raf had thier share too and are equally appreciated.

 

Hello. I'm a new member, and just learning, but, in regard to the flight listed here, I was researching the Flight Sergeant, Leslie Henry Fox. Online, he is listed with many various death dates and differing burial sites, and on one, listed as POW at Stalag 4B, even (per Chorley's book)...but, the WWRT 196 and AJEX card lists him as killed in action 27 Nov 1942, reported 12 Feb 1943, and buried in Hamburg. The War Graves Photographic Project site has different data, dead 09/11/1942 (being British, I'm guessing the data is actually 11-September-1942. And yet, the Find-a-Grave site also has a different set of data! They [FONT=&quot]quote death as 30 July 1944, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, buried at Runnymede Memorial, Englefield Green, Surrey, England, Plot Panel 217.[/FONT] Can anyone sort all this out for me? I'd love to know what is truth and what is improper record keeping. Personally, after all this reading, I suspect the RAF lost track of Fox and likely originally reported him dead in 1942, he wasn't, and then he was officially downed in 1943 and vanished again, only to later learn via Stalag POW records of his capture and subsequent death in their POW camp. I don't have access to any of these books and my county suspended all interlibrary loans years ago with the crash of the economy. Our county has no funds to keep loans up any more, even if I provide full costs on my own. Shame. I hope someone can help. Cordially, Morgan Wallace PS: I know Leslie Henry Fox was married to one Anne Fox (aka: Annie) but I have no idea what became of her, either, or if they had children. If I could track that down too, I'd love to interview them. Granted, Annie, born circa 1914, is not likely alive.

 

Hi Morgan,

Let me make your day and tell you that 16263 F/Sgt Leslie Henry Fox was NOT killed in WWII. He was a Special Duties Operator, an eighth German-speaking crewman who operated top secret radio jamming gear known as ABC, or Airborne Cigar on 101 Sqn Lancasters from September 1943 until war's end.

BC - ABC

Ignore ANY site which tells you that these man actually spoke to the German pilots. It never happened. The gear was designed merely to jam, not transmit.

Fox, according to my information was born Fochs, was the SDO on the crew of 39568 Squadron Leader Hubert Montague Robertson, a Canadian in the RAF. the Lancaster, JB128, was lost on 2 December 1943 on ops to Berlin. Robertson, who died in 1961 while stationed in Brussels, Belgium at the Canadian Embassy, kept the aircraft stable, despite repeated attacks by both fighters and flak, until his entire crew had parachuted.

Fox was incarcerated at Stalag IVB, Muhlberg and liberated by the Russians on 23 April, 1945. Robertson, as an officer was at Stalag Luft 1 in Barth. He was liberated on 1 May 1945 and on 12 mya flew out of Barth to the UK on one of several dozen US B17s which landed at the Barth aerodrome and evacuated almost 10,000 Allied POWs in three days.

Hoping this helps your research.

Regards,

Dave

 

Hi Dave, I confirm. Alrhough speaking German was a requirement for special Operators , their job was to jam German comminications with the A B C device. They never spoke , as speaking would have revealled their position more than anything else. They had three channels to choose from and they had to jam communications before the Germans could mention the position of the pack.
The Germans were aware of this, and they shoot 101 Lancasters down whenever they had a chance . However the German veterans I talked to mentionned they could hardly recognise a Lancaster from a Halifax in the dark (they then called them Viermots = 4 engine aircraft) , so they didn't really have time trying to spot one of the Airborne Cigar antennaes. Special Operators could be recognised with the half wing patch with an "s" on their uniform jacket.



a Special Operator with "S" symbol




101 Squadron ABC Lancaster with three extra antennaes. These aircraft had a crew of eight men instead of seven and carried less bombs to compensate for the ABC equipment and to have the same weight in order to keep the pace with other bombers.

 

Hi Skipper,

In speaking to various former SDOs over the years I've been told they didn't even need to speak German fluently, merely be able to discern the difference between German and say, Polish or Czech, which was used by our allies. As you know many of the "Specials" were either German or Austrians so German was their mother tongue, but just as many were schoolboys from the UK who had taken German for a semester or two in school.

I know all the literature says that bombloads were reduced to make up for the weight of the operator and his gear but in looking at the ORB for 101 Sqn I can say that was not the case. I am reminded of a story told me by the late OC "C" Flight , F/Lt Al Masscheder, DFC, who was ordered to return to Ludford Magna with full bombload and land on the short runway in a terrible crossbreeze. When I looked up his bombload for that trip I was rather surprised to see he was carrying almost 7 tons. There are many examples of this in the ORB.

Who is the chap in the photo with the "Sparks" badge? Is he a 101 man? He does not look familiar to me.

Regards,

Dave

 

I have ORBs with both similar and different bombloads. We are talking about a difference of five small incendiary bombs only . The rough total was not really changed, as they all caried One cookie .

A typical load would be 15 bombs ( a 4000 pound cookie, and fourteen 500 pounds incendiary bombs)

A 101 load would be a cookie and nine incendiary bombs + ABC device and extra man) . The bombs less were about the equivalent of the extra weight. = 2500 pounds (a little more than one ton)


the gentleman on the picture is Sgt Burleigh, Terence, John , 1874533 from East Dereham) http://www.dereham-rollofhonour.org.uk/burleigh.html

 

[SIZE=12pt]I have been researching Leslie Henry Fox who was the son of Sidney S. and Sarah Fox and husband of Anne Fox, of Hampstead, London and have been puzzled by the conflicting dates given by Chorley. Having looked at the Ops Records at The National Archive and the Lancaster bomber loss cards, I now believe that there were two men referred to in various records as L H Fox:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Leslie Henry Fox[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] Service Number 1253600 44 Squadron[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Leonard Harry Fox[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] Service Number 947321 and 162623[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]101 Squadron[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Leslie Henry Fox[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] was the navigator on Lancaster 1 W4180 which took off from RAF Waddington at 18:05 on 9.11.1942, was hit by flak and came down in the area of Bucholz/Ramelsloh, south of Hamburg. He was buried in Hamburg Cemetery[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Leonard Harry Fox[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] was the Wireless Operator on Lancaster 111 JB128 ‘U2’ which took off from RAF Ludford Magna at 16:48 on 2.12.1943. The aircraft was reported as missing and L.H.Fox was reported as PoW No: 269770 Stalag 4B Muhlberg (Elbe). Apparently he was repatriated at the end of the war.[/SIZE]

 

Hello to all doing some sterling work on researching these aircraft and crew. I am the grandson of Leonard Harry Fox. In fact, I am sitting with a small piece of his log book which lists 'U2' as 'missing' after the operation on 2.12.43. He bailed out and landed, minus boots, on the outskirts of Berlin. He handed himself in after a very cold night and being unable to walk. I know he had a difficult time in prison camp - He was sent to Dulag Luft (a transit camp) and then on to Stalag 4B Muehlberg (I have the original Kriegsgefangeenpost postcards). He was commissioned to the rank of pilot officer with effect from 1st December 1943. Published in the London Gazette 11th January 1944. He married Mona Fox after the war and had three daughters. He died in 1983. His wife, in the WAAF at the time, is still alive and well at 95 years of age.