Lancaster Bomber 514 Squadron

Skipper it will take me some time to digest all the info in these latest discoveries of yours-locating the crash site,and where the wreckage now lies,details of Bob Giffin's death, the tragedy of the bomb defusing, the names and the places. This is just another remarkable development. Thanks Alex Campbell

 

As Dad mentions above, our friend Skipper has provided us with some remarkable new details about the night of July 28/29, 1944. He managed to contact a member of the community in St. Cloud en Dunois who had actually written a short article about the events that night and who subsequently has taken the time to find out as much as possible about the identities and current whereabouts of the people who supported the crew of Lancaster A2-C.
Congratulations Skipper, your persistent detective work has added more important chapters to this story. We all look forward to seeing the results of your work on this forum.

A new and tragic part of this story, that was unknown to Dad, was that the morning after the crash, two brothers, the Travers brothers from the nearby community of Ormesec, attempted to defuse some of the unexploded bombs, sadly there was an explosion that killed them and two others, Marceau Linget from Porcheronville and Marcel Maury from Morenneville. Replacing the impersonal term "casualties" with real names and communities changes the story to something personal - one has no problem imagining these people and the lives they led in France, 60 years ago.

Dad mentions in the audio files at this site http://hila-store.webcentre.ca/ww2/
that he had warned the community that the Lanc was carrying delayed fuse bombs ("First Contact With French") and on the "The First 24 Hours" tape he tells of hearing and feeling a huge explosion as bombs detonated at the crash site, unaware that there were casualties.

Wayne

 

Below find (with permission) the first of two documents translated by Skipper.
This was created by a former mayor of St. Cloud en Dunois. As Skipper noted to us it has a couple of minor errors:

Remember….

The death of Lt Robert Giffin, a Canadian airman buried in the Saint Cloud en Dunois cemetery.

During the night of July 29th 1944, a Lancaster MK I bomber took off at 21.47 from Waterbeach, north of Cambridge, England in order to bomb Stuttgart. This aircraft was one of many who were to be shot down that night, while on bombing operations to either Stuttgart or Hamburg. In both cases the casualties were high due to the German Night fighters. The aircrafts were shot down all around France and Germany. During this night of madness, the Flak near Chambrie (sic) shot down a Lancaster that fell between Juvrainville an the Farm of the Moulin de Pierre, some 100 meters away from the road. The eight crew members managed to bail out. Seven of these were scattered around the countryside:
- Pilot Campbell (evaded)
- Navigator Garland (POW)
-bomber Chasinger (evaded)
-Radio operator Lyons (evaded)
-Flight Engineer Donaldson (evaded)
-Mid upper Gunner Jones (evaded)
-Rear gunner Harvey (evaded)

Unfortunately , the second pilot : Flight Officer Robert Giffin , Canadian landed in a field near le Pensier, right next to the ancient Roman road, but he was strangled by the ropes of his parachute. Marius Bois, who worked at le Pensier at the time, found his body the next morning, as he was about to set wheat sheaves.
The Officer’s watch and ring had already been taken….
This Officer of the RCAF was buried in our local cemetery. His grave is well tended.

In the crashed aircraft none of the bombs had exploded. On July 29th, some tried to defuse the bombs. While doing so, the two Travers brothers from Ormesec, as well Marceau Linget from Porcheronville were instantly killed. A fourth man, Marcel Maury, who was a pig butcher at Morenneville, was watching the scene from a distance of 100 yards, but he was hit by a shell and died a few days later. The aircraft was dumped in a quarry near Auvilliers.

These were difficult times. Let us never forget these.

 

It's a privilege to be able to help. I have several other clues, but first I am trying to figure out a small map with all the villages. By the way the Lancaster kept flying, eastwards, on course even when it was empty, it crashed about 12km from St Cloud, which means about a minute left in the air only and several seconds before it was too low to bail out.

 

Enclosed are 2 maps of the St Cloud area. the first one has St Cloud + the estimated crash site area (to be pinpointed even more in the future).

The second one is Alex Campbell's estimated landing area, according to the descriptions and the first places he stayed.

Bob Giffin fell just west of St Cloud.

You will notice how close you were from the Luftwaffe base.

 

Skipper, great maps. I haven't talked to Dad about them but I am sure he is studying them at the moment. He may be able to shed more light on the event if he has an estimate of how far he ran to the first house and was it a group of houses or a single farm house he approached. The home he found refuge in is probably one of the buildings on your map.
Are those excellent images from this French site: http://www.geoportail.fr/

Wayne

 

Here are some examples of how close you can get with the satelitte.

There is a picture of the aircraft cemetery at Chateaudun and another one of Bob Giffin's grave at St Cloud , next to the church. Of course the closer you get, the more pixels you have, but it's still amazing.

 

For those of you who have been following this story you will know that most members of the crew of Lancaster A2-C succesfully evaded capture after crashing close to St. Cloud en Dunois, July 28/29 1944. The local communities hid and protected these flyers. The pilot Alex Campbell has shared his recollections of these events. He was assisted by the mysterious Roger, and "Big Arthur", and others. Skipper, working with his contact in St. Cloud (see article at end of post), has managed to discover more about these people, many of them very ordinary members of the community but involved in extraordinary and dangerous work helping the crew of Lancaster A2-C.

Skipper is attempting to locate some the actual homes where crew members found shelter. Dad recalls that one home was extremely close to an airfield with JU-88s buzzing the house as they left the airfield.
SKipper believes that he may be able to locate this actual house.

In the audio files here: http://hila-store.webcentre.ca/ww2/
"The First 24 Hours" and "Escape to Freteval" dad talks about this airfield.

Wayne
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Skipper translated the recent information he received from St. Cloud:

"Sorry for my belated answer.

I have interviewed several very interesting people regarding the crash of St Cloud en Dunois: Mrs Guillemin from Villousier, Madame Roussel and Mr Roger Martin and Henri David from Morenville and many others…

“Roger” was Roger Chauveau and was a farm worker at Charles Vassort’s in Baigneaux and worked as a cowboy, just a few yards away from the Chateaudun runways. He now lives in Tahiti, but once in a while he comes back to his hometown at Villeloup, which is part of Ozoir-le-Breuil. However we haven’t seen him for many years. I hope he’s still alive (he is 84).
Jacques Liger used to live at Morenneville and died many years ago. His daughter Jacqueline married and now lives in Corsica.

“Big Arthur” could either be Arthur Joury from the village of Morgues, or Arthur Branjoneau. Both are dead.

Mme Marie could have been Mr Vassorts wife, but I’m not certain of that.

Some of the airmen from this aircraft were hidden at Mr Jousseau’s, who was the Chief road mender at Bassonville (1km from Morenneville).Then they were sent to Bellandes (Freteval Forest). Mr Jousseau is dead now.

Enclosed is the copy of an article regarding Mr Campbell’s crew that I wrote when I was Mayor of Saint Cloud en Dunois and which was published in our municipal bulletin."

 

It's time I acknowledged some of these recent developments. Ive been trying to pinpoint my actual landing place. My account of seeing a roof go rotating by as I descended in my parachute may be misleading. The roof could have been from 200 to 500 yds away. Remember I was upside down, suspended by my ankles and abount to receive a resounding blow to the back of my head as I struck the ground.
I began walking away from the burning wreckage with my back to the moon. Wayne has determined the moon's position being az.225 and el. 30 degrees (my recollection). A few people appeared over to my left while to my right were several women toward whom I cautiously approached and introduced myself as best I could. This may indicate there were at least two separate houses not too far apart.
I was taken to a house a short walk away. It must have been close to a road as a motorcycle could and did approach at a high speed right up to the door on two occasions.
Now the "Arthur's house" might be easier to identify if I can come up with some relevant memories. I still think the JU88's were less than 500 feet up while they climbed overhead with their wheels still turnig as the U/C retracted. I'm trying to determine the angle and rate of climb of a JU88. Would need help here. The twin engines I flew were Ansons, Oxfords and Wellingtons, not quite in league with the high powered 88's.
For orientation I feel that if I were facing the road at the Arthur's the planes would be approaching and climbing from my left. Hope this is of some help. It is not exactly a"Quick reply". Thanks to all you helpful folks. Alex Campbell

 

This is not your squadron but I thought you would like the pictures and story Mr Campbell.

http://www.lancastermuseum.ca/s,lastmission.html

 

Thanks for the link and the story. I read all I can find and appreciate your interest. Alex Campbell

 

Our friend, Scott Johnston, interviewed dad about the night of July 28, 1944 and has posted the interview here (bottom of the page at site):
http://www.lancasterdiary.net/colleagues_and_friends.php
This is a detailed, minute by minute, account filled with details of the last minutes of the flight and first contact with the French community.
Skipper, in this account, Dad recalls some details about the houses he approached. "It was just a small gathering of houses – maybe four houses," this may help determine the first place he was concealed.

Wayne

 

The most interesting is not the details about the houses but the fact that your father was at the Arthurs with two other fliers (Raf + Rcaf) . Do you know their names? Joe Foreman RCAF crashed on July 25th at St Laurent , south of Chateaudun. Another crew crash at Villampuy (near Auvilliers) on July 26th (evaders= Justason, Calderwood, Gumbsby, Kenley ,Chamberlain MacDonald ) they are all RCAF except Kenley and Chamberlain who are RAF.

 

Great news, I have just seen a draft of the art design of Ju88G1 4R+A4 and Lanc AC2 by Christian, it is really taking shape. The Bristol Hercules are awesome. He emphasized the colours of the rings around the the engines and matched them with the clouds and landscape. They almost have a copper aspect instead....

 

More interesting all the time. Thanks for the update Skipper. E A Campbell

 

Skipper : on the 88G-1

4R+A4 ? ah that should read something else, no 4 at the end of the code

E ~

 

my spelling mistake, it's 4R+AK you scared me for a minute Erich.

 

Does anybody know Strassner's Werknummer?

A.C = JU88 G-1 4R+AK. It must start with 71.... (July 1944)

 

Some news: Alex Campbell is in the paper today! The other day I saw a journalist taking pictures of our local square that had been renovated. I invited the man over for lunch and told him about my association called "Aviator Memories". He said that that he could write an article for me asking for people who had information about WWII crashes to call me . I though tthis was a great opportunity to find info about the A2-C crash. The article is general and mentions several works I am dealing with, but there are a few lines + a picture about the Alex Campbell crew. I already had two phone calls , including one from Freteval. It was a man inviting me to the yearly commemorations. Another was an Indo-China war veteran who knows how to find another Lancaster south of my hometown. If there is interest I can scan the article (I'll just take out my phone number)

 

To the Campbells. 2 technical questions:

Christian and myself saw a bunch of pictures from 514Squadron aircrafts with Yellow (or white ) stripes on the tail section. Some data says MkIIs had those yellow stripes from June 1944 , other pictures show no stripes at all. So just to make sure; was A2-c fitted with those? chrsitian has not painted any, but he can stil ladd them.
Also, some MkIIs had a small ersatz of a turret near the bomb hatch. These were usually built on MKI's but some MKIIs with Bristol Hercules had those too. It was hardly ever used, especially in the dark, but did A2-C have one of these?