Operation: Mannheim

Date: 26/27th July 1940 (Friday/Saturday)

Unit: No. 102 squadron

Type: Whitley MkV

Serial: N1377

Code: DY-B

Base: RAF Driffield, Yorkshire

Location: A polder at Spijkenisse, Holland

Pilot: P/O. Robert Fochaig Beauclair 41983 RAF PoW No: 154 Camp: Stalag Luft Sagan and Belaria (1)

2nd Pilot: P/O. John Christopher Wyndowe Bushell 74666 RAF PoW No: 156 Camp: Stalag Luft Sagan and Belaria (2)

Opserver: Sgt. E.A. Galloway 746961 RAF PoW No: 156 Camp: Stalag Luft Sagan and Belaria

W/Op/Air/Gnr: Sgt. K.J. Read 629569 RAF PoW No: 193 Stalag Luft Kopernikus

Air/Gnr: Sgt. C. Wood 632032 RAF PoW No: 200 Stalag Luft Kopernikus

REASON FOR LOSS: 

45 aircraft taking off this night to attack various targets in France and Germany. A further 12 Hampdens from 5 group went on a ‘gardening’ operation.  N1377 taking off at 20:30 hrs together with five other aircraft from the squadron to bomb Mannheim. Thought to have run out of fuel and crash landed at 01:30 Hrs.

Area of loss

Above and below, German troops inspecting Whitley N1377

(1) P/O. Robert Fochaig Beauclair escaped an earlier incident after he and the crew abandoned Whitley V N1528 DY-E over Metz, all the crew managed to evade an return to RAF Driffield.

(2) P/O. Bushell later joined the foreign office (1952) rising to Ambassador to Cambodia between 1975 - 1976. He died on the 14th December 1995. (shown right)

Burial details:

None - all crew survived.

Researched by Michel Beckers for Aircrew Remembered, March 2015. (photographs also supplied by Michel Beckers)