Operation: Koln (Cologne)

Date: 10/11th July 1941 (Thursday/Friday)

Unit: No. 9 Squadron

Type: Vickers Wellington Ic

Serial: W5729

Code: WS-J

Base: RAF Honington, Suffolk

Location: Near Pihen-les-Guines, Pas-de-Calais region, France

Crew

Pilot: Sgt. Stanley Cyril Retter, 905812, RAFVR, Age 21 - Killed

2nd Pilot: Sgt. Hugh Thomas Martland Ainscough, 916333, RAFVR, Age 20 - Killed

Air Observer: Sgt. James Edward Drew, R/67544, RCAF, Age 23 - Injured (1)

Wireless Operator/Air Gunner: Sgt. Wilfred John Tidey, 952281, RAFVR, Age 19 - Killed

Air Gunner: Sgt. James Pryde, 990458, RAFVR, Age unknown - Prisoner of War No. 39328 (Stalag IXC - Muhlhausen, Stalag 357 - Fallingbostel)

Air Gunner: Sgt. D. R. Greig, 937418, RAFVR, Age unknown - Prisoner of War No. 52 (Stalag IIIE - Kirchhain, Stalag Luft III - Sagan and Belaria, Stalag Luft VI - Heydekrug, Stalag 357 - Fallingbostel)

Reason for Loss

Wellington W5729 took off from RAF Honington at 00:05 hours, some fourteen minutes later than the twelve other aircraft of the squadron, owing to a slight problem with the rear turret. A signal was acknowledged at 04:14 hours placing the aircraft ten miles south-west of Charleroi, Belgium. A further fix placed the aircraft approximately twenty miles west of Lille, but nothing further was heard from it. The aircraft may have been shot down by enemy night fighters or hit by flak, and crashed near Pihen-les-Guines in the Pas-de-Calais region.

A total of ninety-eight Wellingtons and thirty-two Hampdens were dispatched on this operation to bomb two key areas of the city of Cologne, including the Humboldt engineering works, for a total loss of two aircraft. All the other aircraft from the squadron returned to base safely.

(1) Sgt. James Edward Drew was found in a critically injured state and died later in hospital.

Burial Details

Sgt. Stanley Cyril Retter. Pihen-les-Guines Communal Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France. Grave reference: Row A, Grave 12. Son of Sidney Henry and Henrietta Mary Retter of Ottery St. Mary, Devon. Stanley gained his Aviator's Certificate on 4th July 1939 at Exeter Aero Club.

Sgt. Hugh Thomas Martland Ainscough. Pihen-les-Guines Communal Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France. Grave reference: Row A, joint Grave 11. Son of Sir Thomas Martland Ainscough, Kt., C.B.E., M.Com., F.R.G.S., and Lady Ainscough (nee Lincolne), of Southbourne, Bournemouth, Hampshire.

Sgt. James Edward Drew. Longuenesse (St. Omer) Souvenir Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France. Grave reference: Plot 9, Row C, Grave 1. Son of Clifford and Gladys Drew; husband of Jean Eliza Drew, of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Born 20th September 1917 in Toronto.

Sgt. Wilfred John Tidey. Pihen-les-Guines Communal Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France. Grave reference: Row A, joint Grave 11. Son of William Albert and Florence Maud Tidey, of Leicester.

Supplement: Sgt. James Edward Drew - Family and Service Details

The following biographical detail has been drawn from Sgt. Drew's Royal Canadian Air Force personnel service file and from contemporary Canadian press reports, and is offered as a supplement to the crew summary above.

Family Background

James Edward Drew was born on 20th September 1917 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Clifford William James Drew and his wife Gladys (nee Hubbell). His father, a barber by trade, was born in Orillia, Ontario, and by 1940 was living at 33 Wyandotte Street East, Windsor, Ontario. His mother, who was born in Toronto, had died some years before James enlisted; RCAF medical records note that she died in childbirth.

James had six sisters, all living at the time of his enlistment in 1940, and one brother who survived him; a second brother had died at birth.

Education

James attended Gilmore (Gilmour) Public School from 1926 to 1931, before going on to Kennedy Collegiate and then Walkerville Collegiate Institute, Walkerville, Ontario, from 1931 to 1936, where he completed his Senior Matriculation with honours. He subsequently studied Electrical Engineering at the Detroit Institute of Technology, and was in his third year there when he enlisted in July 1940.

Civilian Employment

As a boy, James worked part time as a barber's apprentice with his father, C. Drew, after school and on Saturdays, from 1931 to 1936. From 1936 until his enlistment in 1940 he was employed as a Stock Control Clerk with the Canadian General Electric Company Ltd. in Windsor, where his employer described him as "of sober habits, punctual, industrious and thoroughly trustworthy," adding that he was "intelligent and studious." A character reference from the City of Windsor's Office of the City Engineer, where James was known personally to the City Engineer, similarly described him as "sober, honest and industrious."

Enlistment and Air Observer Training

James Edward Drew enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force at Windsor, Ontario, on 1st July 1940, and was given the service number R.67544. He progressed through the following stages of training as an Air Observer:

• No. 1 Initial Training School, Toronto - 22nd July to 17th August 1940. He placed 38th out of 126 in his class, and was assessed as "a very good man; should make a good observer; a capable airman, accurate and precise in his work."
• No. 1 Air Observers School - 16th September to 7th December 1940 (Course 7). He placed 15th out of 42 and was noted for "class work quite good, 13th in class; passed supplemental examination in signals."
• No. 1 Bombing and Gunnery School, Jarvis, Ontario - 8th January to 17th February 1941 (Course 9). He was held over from an earlier course owing to illness, and was described as "extremely hard-working," though his instructors noted he showed only average ability in this stage and observed that he "appears to be going stale in Bombing and Gunnery subjects."
• No. 1 Air Navigation School, Rivers, Manitoba - 17th February to 15th March 1941 (Course 9). He was assessed as "an above average student" and "a capable navigator," if "a bit slow to grasp points" and "a bit untidy," and was recommended as a future instructor.

He was awarded his Air Observer's Badge on 15th February 1941 and was promoted to Temporary Sergeant (Paid), Air Observer Special Group, with effect from the same date. His final combined assessment across all three schools was 76.9 per cent, a pass, placing him 25th out of 82 in his class.

Marriage and Overseas Service

On 18th March 1941, shortly before proceeding overseas, James married Jean Eliza Donaldson at Windsor, Ontario, with the permission of his commanding officer. He embarked for the United Kingdom on 5th April 1941, disembarking on 6th April 1941. After passing through No. 3 Personnel Reception Centre, Uxbridge, and No. 11 Operational Training Unit, Bassingbourn, he was posted to No. 9 Squadron at RAF Honington on 11th July 1941 - the same night on which he was lost on his first operation, the raid on Cologne.

Loss and Commemoration

Sgt. Drew was initially reported missing following the operation of 10/11th July 1941. According to the Aircrew Remembered record of the crew, he was found in a critically injured state after the crash and died later in hospital, although RCAF records give his official date of death, for administrative purposes, as 11th July 1941, the date of the operation.

A Royal Air Force letter to his widow dated 1st August 1941 reported that information received from the International Red Cross Society had changed his status from "missing" to "missing believed killed in action." He was formally presumed dead for official purposes on the casualty list of 19th January 1942, and a Notification of Death was issued by the Air Ministry, London, on 30th April 1942, confirming that he was presumed to have lost his life on 11th July 1941 as a result of air operations.

Sgt. James Edward Drew is buried in the Longuenesse (St. Omer) Souvenir Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France, Plot 9, Row C, Grave 1.

Aftermath

James's widow, Jean Eliza Drew, was his sole dependant at the time of his death. In January 1944 she remarried, to Leading Aircraftman C. J. Boutette, R-219247, RCAF, who was at that time serving overseas in Germany; the couple had one son from this marriage. Writing to RCAF Records Office in June 1945, by then as Mrs. Jeanne Boutette, she recounted the circumstances of her first husband's loss in support of a claim regarding his War Service Gratuity, which was ultimately paid to her in July 1945 in the sum of $131.90.

Newspaper Report

Sgt. J. E. Drew was named in the Royal Canadian Air Force's 165th official casualty list, reported in the Canadian press under an Ottawa dateline of 19th January 1942. The report recorded him among those "previously reported missing - now for official purposes presumed dead," and listed his wife, Mrs. J. E. Drew, of 1356 Lincoln Road, Windsor, Ontario, as next of kin.

Sgt. J. E. Drew, as pictured in the Canadian press casualty report, January 1942.

Supplement: Sir Thomas Martland Ainscough, Kt., C.B.E., M.Com., F.R.G.S.

Sgt. Hugh Thomas Martland Ainscough, 2nd Pilot of W5729, was the son of Sir Thomas Martland Ainscough and Lady (Mabel) Ainscough, of Southbourne, Bournemouth. The following account of Sir Thomas's career has been drawn from published biographical sources, to give context to the family named in the burial details above.

Early Life and Career

Thomas Martland Ainscough was born on 12th August 1886 in Parbold, Lancashire, the eldest son of James Ainscough, who later served as Mayor of Wigan in 1922-23. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, in Switzerland, and at Manchester University.

He began his career with an export firm in Manchester, and in 1906 went to China to represent the firm, travelling extensively in the western provinces while periodically returning to report to his employers. In 1912 he left business to become Special Commissioner to the Board of Trade in China, appointed on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence to inquire into the conditions and prospects of British trade there. From 1916 to 1917 he served as Secretary to the Board of Trade's Textile Committee and the Empire Cotton Weaving Committee.

Sir Thomas Martland Ainscough, by Walter Stoneman. Credit: National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG x189203 / NPG x163446). Reproduced by permission - licence to be confirmed with the National Portrait Gallery before publication or wider distribution.

Senior Trade Commissioner

In 1918 Ainscough was appointed Senior British Trade Commissioner for India, Burma and Ceylon (later India and Ceylon), a post he held for more than twenty-five years until his retirement in 1944. His twice-yearly reports on trade conditions across the region attracted considerable interest in the British press and business community, and he played a significant part in developing commercial ties between Britain and the Indian subcontinent.

He was briefly attached to the Persian Tariff Commission in 1920, and in 1932 was a member of the British delegation to the Imperial Economic Conference in Ottawa, Canada, where preferential Empire tariffs were negotiated. In 1942 he was appointed British Representative of the Ministry of War Transport and organised the war transport department at Delhi. He retired from public service in 1944.

Honours

• Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) - 1918 Birthday Honours
• Commander of the Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) - 1925 Birthday Honours
• Knight Bachelor (Kt.) - 1932 Birthday Honours

His post-nominal M.Com. reflects a Master of Commerce degree, consistent with his Manchester University education and career in trade; F.R.G.S. denotes Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society.

Family

Sir Thomas married Mabel Lincolne in 1918; she became Lady Ainscough, and it is under this name that she appears in the crew's burial details, as of Southbourne, Bournemouth, Hampshire. The couple had two sons, one of whom - Sgt. Hugh Thomas Martland Ainscough - was killed in action on the night of 10/11th July 1941, aboard Wellington W5729. Following Lady (Mabel) Ainscough's death, Sir Thomas remarried in 1956, to Marjorie Jones. He died on 15th October 1976, aged 90, in Dorset.

For a fuller account of this crew we recommend Oliver Clutton-Brock, "Footprints on the Sands of Time" (ISBN 1 904010 35 0).

Sources and Acknowledgements

• Aircrew Remembered Archives - KateTame
• London Gazette Archives
• FlightGlobal Archive
• The National Archives, Kew - AIR 27/126 (No. 9 Squadron Operations Record Book)
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• Library and Archives Canada - Royal Canadian Air Force personnel service file, R.67544, Sgt. James Edward Drew
• Canadian Press casualty report, RCAF 165th Casualty List, 19th January 1942
• Oliver Clutton-Brock, "Footprints on the Sands of Time" (ISBN 1 904010 35 0)
• Paradie-Dutil RCAF Archives
• National Portrait Gallery, London - portraits of Sir Thomas Martland Ainscough by Walter Stoneman (NPG x189203, NPG x163446)
• "Who Was Who, 1971-1980: A Companion to Who's Who" (St. Martin's Press, 1981), p. 10
• "Sir Thomas Ainscough" [obituary], The Times, 18 October 1976, p. 16

Compiled from the sources above; corrections, additions and photographs are always welcome.