Lancaster Bomber 514 Squadron

I just went to visit a Stuttgart crew grave near my home and wanted to share this picture with you .

 

Skipper 67 your thoughtful comments are always so appreciated, thank you. Now a somber note. Our mid-upper gunner, Earl Jones, passed away in June. It seems that leaves me the sole survivor of the crew. We have our memories.
Alex Campbell

 

How sad to hear about Earl Jones. I always wanted to ge tin touch with him. Please send my regards and deepest respect to his family. He shall be remembered.
I just returned from a Bbq with some English friends and had a great time. We returned to the cemetery in the afternoon and were pleased to see some othe relatives from Canada had also sent flowers and that some French villagers had also brought more flowers. Later we paid our tribute at the actual crash site of a Lancaster and were glad to see some people had brought flowers there too. I did not have the opportunity to go to Bob Giffin's grave this year, but the next time I drive through Saint Cloud I will stop there and lay a flower on his grave too.
I have also received your email and Waye's regarding the French gentleman.

 

Hi Alex,

Thank you for sharing with me about my uncle Bert (aka Herb). I don't know if I have mentioned to you in the past that I had the privilege of having one of the surviving crew members Gerlad Martin (flight engineer) stay with my family here in Australia for a week back in 2007. Gerald sadly passed away in 2008 but I still keep in touch with his wife Ruth.
When Gerald was here I was able to fulfill one of his dreams by arranging a flight in a Tiger Moth and the owner took such a liking to Gerald he even let him take control once in flight.
Gerald has left me a wealth of information and photos and newspaper clippings that I have been able to recently share with Paul Cheall. Paul is currently putting together a great web site dedicated to the crew.
Anyway I will keep in touch and it is great to be in contact with you again.

Regards

Shane Delacour

 

For those of you who have been following Dad's story you will know that he spent time sheltered in a large house on the edge of a main road near Chateaudun. He understood this house belonged to some people named Arthur. Skipper has been helpful in tracking down the area that this house is in.

We recently received information from Michel at Morreneville in France, Michel tells us he works on the farm where Dad's lancaster crashed the night of July 28/29 and he knows the "Arthur's" house, it turns out the house was the home of Arthur Jousseau and his family.

I will attempt to include a Google Maps link to the location:

Arthur's House Link
Morenneville, france - Google Maps

If the link works you should be seeing a street view image of the house in Google maps.

Dad recalls that German soldiers often stopped to purchase eggs and other produce at the house, and he assumed the house was on a flight path for the Luftwaffe, they often had JU88s and ME109s passing directly over the house.

If you exit from street view, and zoom out you can see the existing runway at Chateaudun and it is aligned with the home of Arthur Jousseau.

 

Alex,
I take a moment of silence and prayer for Mr. Earl Jones. His memory and heroic actions will live on. He will be sadly missed by those who cherish freedom. Thanks for sharing your story here and for serving with the 514th, Sir!

 

Another interesting development in this story.

Michel, who lives in France close to the crash site of Lancaster A2-C, has found some debris from the wreckage.
Apparently the field was recently plowed and he used a metal detector to find these objects.

Links to images here:

http://hila.webcentre.ca/514/artifacts1.JPG
http://hila.webcentre.ca/514/artifacts2.JPG

We are attempting to identify the knob with “Off” and “On” printed on it – possibly from radio equipment. It is possible the word “On” is actually “Run”, the “O” looks a bit like a “U”

 

Nice finds and quite moving too. The button does not belong to the front side of the radio device. the knobs there have 8 teeth only and different markings. I'm thinking of an intercom or the Navigator's "Gee" box (Alex will know what this is) but I will have to check further. One button could actually fit on the radio (the side tune swith) but the pictures I have have roundels with no teeth.

 

E.A. Campbell at 2011 Canadian International Airshow.

The Canadian International Airshow is currently underway in Toronto, it is held annually as part of the Candian National Exhibition - CNE. A special event at the show is the appearance of a Lancaster, owned and operated by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.

On Saturday, dad attended the airshow. A friend of the family arranged a VIP pass for him, when the organizers discovered they had a Lancaster pilot attending the event, they asked him to introduce the Lancaster as it approached and provide a narrative as it flew over. This Lancaster is one of two still flying.

A YouTube video captured some of the event, the roar of the Merlins is overwhelming but if you listen carefully to the first 15 seconds of this video you will hear some of dad's narrative: "We were shot down close to Orleans, France July 28, 1944".

Avro Lancaster - Toronto Air Show 2011 - YouTube

 

This is wonderful and very moving, thank you so much for keeping us updated. Alex must have been delighted.

 

Hi Alex, Skipper et al - can't tell you how thrilled I am to have found this thread.

My cousin, Flt Sgt Frank 'Stanley' Jones flew with 514 Sqn and was shot down on the same night as Alex, 28/29 July 1944, during the large scale raid on Stuttgart. I think his crew flew LM627 'D' (which I know they crewed on the night of 23/24 July). Sadly Stanley was killed along with four of his fellow crew members. The pilot of his Lanc was also a 'Jones' - F/Lt Robert Jones. I've attached a photo of Stanley together with a copy of the letter my Great Aunt received on 30 July 1944. As you can see, the letter is signed by Wing Commander M Wyatt who's signature is on Alex's flight log book (http://www.hilaroad.com/RCAF/59_60.jpg).

Their plane crashed near Neufchateau in France and he's buried there with his comrades. I've a copy of a very touching letter from a Charles Lang from Neufchateau dated January 1946 addressed to F/Lt Robert Jones' mother. Charles Lang tended to one of the two survivors (Sgt Harwell) and confirmed that one other crew member - Sgt G Robinson - had survived but had been taken prisoner. My Great Aunt could never bring herself to visit the grave but after the war the mothers of F/O Loder and Sgt Lane(or Lang) together with Sgt Harwell visited Neufchateau as guests of the town corporation. A newspaper article from the time describes the visit at length and is very moving. I've not been over to France to visit the cemetery myself but other members of my family have and they said that the graves are clearly well tended even after all these years.

If anyone is interested in the other letter and newspaper article I'd be happy to post it onto this thread. Similarly if anyone is researching F/Lt R Jones, F/O K Loder, Sgt G Robinson, Sgt Lane, Sgt W Braine or Sgt T Harwell, I'd be delighted to hear from them.

As a family we've always been very proud of Stanley and the bravery and self-sacrifice of his and Alex's generation. If anyone can shed any light on Stanley's time in 514 Sqn I'd be very grateful.

 

Hi Chris this is great news. By all means I'd love to read the other letter and the newspaper article. The Stuttgart Opertion is one of the reason why I joined this forum in 2006

As a matter of fact I have been in touch with Thomas Harvell . He is a great man.

 

Hi Skipper. The penny has finally dropped and I've realised that Stanley (Flt Sgt F S Jones) was one of Thomas Harvell's fellow crew members of LM206 which is covered in a separate thread (which I've now read through). I'll re-post my first post to the LM206 thread together with the letter and newspaper clipping. I guess you've also seen the Graeme Lothian painting of Heinz Rokker's JU88 shooting down LM206? (Sorry, I'm playing catch-up here! The power of the internet - amazing!)

Chris

 

I certainly have. Heinz Rökker also shot down LM462 near my home town the same night. This is how I got interested in this operation. Yes, I have seen the painting. I wrote to Thomas Harvell after reading Mr Rökker's bibiography, which mentions thieir friendship.

 

Hello Chris- It's good to hear from you and know that you are interested as we are in hearing more and more
details of our fellow combatants. I know you are in good hands with that great "SKIPPER" we have.
Our crew also had a crew member named Jones or"Jonesy". He was our mid upper gunner E.R.Jones from Calgary Alberta, the crew's youngest. Sadly he passed away in June leaving me the sole survivor of the crew.
I agree with your remarks about the internet and how it brings so many of us together. I never did get to know your uncle but certainly became aware of him as events were made known to us.Your postings are well written and we all appreciate them. Cheers Alex Campbell

 

Many thanks Alex. Your 514 Sqn thread has been fascinating to read through from start to finish. I'm sorry to hear about your 'Jonesy' - my father-in-law passed away last month (Rifle Corps, captured in Libya 1941, two years PoW, one year Italian resistance..) so I can sympathise. I was pleased to hear that you mark the anniversary of 29th July each year as by coincidence I've been doing the same ever since I found out the date Stanley died on. Wherever I am I make a point of raising a glass and drinking a toast to him and his colleagues. From next year I'll make it a toast to the whole of '514 Squadron'. Yours was, and is, a remarkable generation.

Chris

 

Our friend Michel has been doing more research from his home at Lutz-en-Dunois in France around the events of July 28 1944. Michel believes he has found the home and the barn that dad was concealed in on the first night.

With a German patrol approaching the house, dad was taken to an attached barn, he describes the event:
"He took me down past the horses to what I called a chop box. It was a big wooden box that had ground up grain in it, and beside that box was this great big pile of chaff – short straw. They’d already done some cutting, I guess. Or it might have been last year’s.
He backed me into the corner – it felt cold – I think it was a stone wall, and plaster. There I was flat on the floor with my head down against the chop box, and in the corner of the wall. He took a fork, and just heaved that pile of chaff on top of me. Piled it right up.
Then he went back and into the kitchen - I heard a door open. They were talking to this German. And I knew they shut the kitchen door again, because I could see a bit of light filtering in though the chaff."

Michel sent us this picture of the interior of the barn, it certainly is as dad described "I think it was a stone wall and plaster", amazing that it is still there.

 

This is nice news. If this is indeed the place it's amazing to see it's still in the same condition. I can imagine the hay in there.

 

Hello FlyingBishop ... my name is Jim and I'm a teacher at a high school in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. My students and I are trying to find out information about David Oscar Brown, the RCAF crew member on the Lancaster that crashed in Hunsel, as he attended our school as a young man. I was wondering if I could contact you to talk to you about him. I just showed my students the YouTube video of the Hunsel memorial dedication that you did. Well done. (Jim)

 

Those of you who have been following this story will know that dad was flying a Mkll Lancaster on the night of July 28.
This variant used Bristol Hercules radial engines, not Rolls Royce Merlins. Only 300 Mkll's were produced, images of this aircraft are rare.

I was surprised to find, on YouTube, some colour video footage of a Mkll in flight,
Avro Lancaster Bomber - Rare WWII Colour Film of the Lancaster - YouTube

If you pause the video at 4 seconds, the round cowlings of radial engines, the single exhaust pipe and the upper air scoop are clearly visible.

The narrator talks about Rolls Royce Merlin engines but I believe that the aircraft featured in the video are Mkll's with Bristol Hercules Radial engines.

This group from Sweden demonstrates a Bristol Hercules radial engine:
Bristol Hercules - YouTube