Operation: Saint-Leu-d’Esserent, France

Date: 7th/8th July 1944 (Friday/Saturday)

Unit No: 207 Squadron, 5 Group, Bomber Command

Type: Lancaster I

Serial: ME805

Code: EM:J

Base: RAF Spilsby, Lincolnshire

Location: SW of Wambez (Oise), France

Pilot: Fg Off. Michael Alderton 1782753 RAFVR Age? Evader (1)

Flt Eng: Sgt. Albert John Chinn 947663 RAFVR Age 27. Id No, 78433 *, PoW No. 8082 ** (2)

Nav: Sgt. Leonard Philip Barham 1399399 RAFVR Age 23. Id No. 78432 *, PoW No. 8076 ** (3)

Bomb Aimer: Fg Off. William Alsop Clowes 151742 RAFVR Age 27. Evader (5)

WOp/Air Gnr: Sgt. Albert Frederick James Fagan 1822435 RAFVR Age 23. Evader (6)

Air Gnr (Mid Upp): Sgt. Ernest Arthur Gilbert Hay 1880401 RAFVR Age 19. Evader (7)

Air Gnr (Rear): Sgt. Austin England Benet Metcalfe 1592457 RAFVR Age 19. Evader (8)

* Buchenwald concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimer, Germany in July 1937.

** Stalag Luft 3 Sagan-Silesia, Germany, now Żagań in Poland.

REASON FOR LOSS:

On the night of the 7th July 1944 15 Aircraft from the Squadron took off from RAF Spilsby commencing at 23:21 hrs. They joined a force comprising 208 Lancasters and 13 Mosquitos on a mission to bomb the V-1 (Vergeltungswaffe) flying bomb storage site located in the underground quarry at Saint-Leu-d’Esserent, France.

The site was named by the Germans as the Leopold Low 1106 Feldmulag (Leopold Field Munitions Camp/Depot).

ME805 and four other aircraft from the Squadron failed to return. This was the second month in 1944 that the Squadron had suffered this number of losses on a single operation:

Lancaster I LM129 EM:Y (3 KiA, 3 PoW, 1 Evd);
Lancaster I LM218 EM:N (5 KiA, 2 Evd);
Lancaster III ND567 EM:Y (5 KiA, 1 PoW, 1 Evd);
Lancaster III ND866 EM:B (6 KiA, 1 PoW).

ME805 was one of three bombers claimed as a possible by Hptm. Hans Autenreith, his 21st Abschuss from 6./NJG4, in the Forges-les-Eaux area at 3.000 m at 01:32 hrs. (Nachtjagd Combat Archive (12 May 1944 - 23 July 1944) Part 3 - Theo Boiten).

Hptm. Autenreith became a PoW on the night of the 3rd/4th August 1944 after his Ju-88 was shot down at Fougères by a Mosquito from either 264 Sqn or 488 Sqn. After the war he joined the Bundes Luftwaffe where he reached the rank of Oberstleutnant (Wg Cdr). He passed away on the 8th June 1996. (Luftwaffe ACES - Biographies and Victory Claims (Mathews and Foreman) - Volume 1)

All of the crew successfully abandoned to aircraft which crashed about 1 km (1100 yards) SW of Wambez (Oise) and 3 km (1¾ mls) south of Songeons at around 01:30 hrs.

(1) The Escape and Evasion report for Fg Off. Alderton has not survived and all that is known is that he was liberated in France.

(2) Flt Sgt. Chinn baled out and landed in a field and having hidden his equipment he started walking. He walked through Songeons towards Morvillers which he reached at 16:30 hrs. He then hid himself until 18:00 hrs until the following day when he contacted a French farmworker who took him to the farmer. He remained with the farmer for the next 4 weeks.

On the 7th August the head of the local Resistance movement came to Songeons and informed him that he could get back to the UK by the weekend if he was willing to go, to which he agreed. His host took him to Beauvais by bicycle where he was handed over to two different Frenchmen and then stayed with a postal worker for 3 days.

On the 11th August he boarded a coach to Paris and met with Fg Off. Thomas Hodgson RCAF and Flt Sgt. Llewelyn Williams RAFVR. They arrived in Paris about mid-day and were handed over to a Frenchman who kept them at his flat. Whilst there 4 other Allied airmen joined them. The next thing they knew was that the building was surrounded and they were handed over to the Gestapo.

See Ser (4)

(3) Flt Sgt. Barham baled out and landed safely in a field. His plan was to get across the river Seine and the next morning he began walking in a South-Westerly direction. Some farm workers provided him with some civilian clothes. He spent the following night at a farmhouse in the village of Hebecourt.

The following morning he was introduced by the farmer to a Frenchman who took him to his house in the village of Saint-Denis-le-Ferment where he remained for 4 weeks. There was also a Canadian and an American Air Force NCO. A week before they left they heard that some other RAF personnel had been taken by the underground movement to the Seine and flown to England. The organisation arranged to move them on the 7th August 1944 down to the river Seine.

Believed to be Fg Off. Earl C. Watson RCAF and S/Sgt. Samuel A. Pennell USAAF.

A car arrived the following morning with a man and a girl who was a schoolmistress from Gisors. The man was known as 'Jean-Jacques'.

Note: From the description of the man and woman it is probable that this couple were Jean-Jacques and Madame Orsini:

Jean-Jacques was a Belgian traitor named Jaques Desoubrie (Jean-Jacques, Jean Masson and Pierre Boulain were aliases) who had infiltrated the Réseau Comète (Comet Line) escape route in Brussels and Paris. He was responsible for the Nazis rounding up dozen of members of the Réseau Comète and Allied airmen. He was finally captured and stood accused at a French military trial in Lille. He was convicted and condemned to death for having participated in the capture and assassination of members of the resistance and for sending Allied military to their deaths in violation of the Geneva convention. He was executed by firing squad.

Madame Orsini, also known as Colette, was Marie-Antoinette Orsini and an accomplice of Desoubrie. She was arrested by the French authorities but not before Desoubrie tried but failed to kill her so that she would not inform on him.

They were driven to Chars (Val-d’Oise) where a German officer got into the car and they were then driven direct to the Gestapo HQ at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris. See Ser (4).

(4) They were then transferred to Fresnes prison which was located to the south of Paris and was where French political prisoners were held and ordinarily Allied airmen, after questioning, were moved to a PoW Camp. In the summer of 1944, with the Allies having liberated Paris and closing in, the Gestapo guards started reducing the prison population by execution, and then relocating surviving prisoners to various concentration camps east of France. On the 15th August 1944 they were amongst 169 Allied PoWs and hundreds of French men and women who were packed into a freight train and transported to Buchenwald concentration camp on a journey lasting five days. Buchenwald was located 8 km (5 mls) north of Weimar, in the German province of Thüringen. It was established and administered by the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Fg Off. Joel Mathews ‘Tex’ Stevenson C27788 RCAF, the pilot of 419 (Moose) Squadron, RCAF Lancaster X KB727 VR:H escaped from the train and successfully evaded.

Sqn Ldr. Lamason and Fg Off. Chapman succeeded in getting all but two of the Allied PoWs transferred to Stalag Luft 3. Two airmen, 1st Lt. Levitt Clinton Beck Jr. O-736945, US AAF and Fg Off. Philip Derek Hemmens, 152583, RAFVR died in the sick barrack.

Recognition:

For decades the International Red Cross (IRC) had stated that there were no military personnel in Buchenwald despite the overwhelming documentary and anecdotal evidence. It was not until 1988 that the IRC eventually confirmed the airmen were illegally held at Buchenwald.

The Australian, New Zealand and Canadian governments also consistently denied that any of their service personnel were ever held in concentration camps and refused to investigate the claims made by a 'mere’ handful of men.

Reparations were made to the British airmen who had been illegally held at Buchenwald in 1965. Eventually in 1988 the Australian, New Zealand and it is believed the Canadian governments acknowledged that their airmen had been illegally held in concentration camps.

American airmen were among those receiving compensation and the US Air force have acknowledged the Buchenwald airmen with an exhibit at the Air Force Museum, albeit the airmen are shown in uniform rather than in civilian attire. Furthermore, there is no mention of decades-long denial of their experiences by other branches of the government.

Flt Sgt. Chinn and Flt Sgt. Barham were transferred to Stalag Luft 3, East Compound over the period 15th to 20th October 1944.

On the night of the 27th January 1945, with Soviet troops only 26 km (16 mls) away, orders were received to evacuate the PoWs to Spremberg which is to the West in Germany. The PoW’s were informed of the evacuation, which was on foot, at about 22:00 hrs the same night and were given 30 mins to pack and prepare everything for the March. The weather conditions were very difficult, with freezing temperatures, and it was snowing accompanied by strong winds. There was 15 cm (6 in) of snow and 2000 PoWs were assigned to clear the road ahead of the main groups.

After a 55 km (34 mls) march, the PoWs arrived in Bad Muskau where they rested for 30 hours. The PoWs were then marched the remaining 26 km (16 mls) to Spremberg where they were housed in empty garages, storerooms and in military barracks. There they were provided with warm soup and bread.

Flt Sgt. Chinn joined PoWs from the North, East and remaining West compound PoWs and sent to the Marlag und Milag Nord PoW camp at Westertimke in Lower Saxony.

Marlag is an acronym for Marinelager (naval prisoner of war camp), Milag is short for Marine-Internierten-Lager (naval internment camp), and Nord is German for ‘north’.

On the 2nd April 1945 the Commandant announced that he had received orders to leave the camp with most of his guards, leaving only a small detachment behind to hand over the camp to Allied forces, who were already in Bremen.

However, that afternoon a detachment of over a hundred SS-Feldgendarmerie entered the camp, mustered over 3,000 men and marched them out, heading east. Records show that Plt Off. Guilfoyle was listed as being on this forced march. The next day, at around at 10:00 hrs the column was strafed by RAF aircraft, and two PoWs were killed.

Over the next few days the column was attacked from the air several times. Finally the Senior British Naval Officer (SBNO), who was later killed in a strafing attack by RAF aircraft, offered the Germans the PoW’s parole, in return for being allowed to rest during the day and march at night. The Germans agreed.

On the 9th April 1945 the guards at Marlag und Milag Nord camp moved out and were replaced by older men, presumably local Volkssturm. Meanwhile, the column slowly headed east, finally crossing the River Elbe, north of Hamburg, on the 18th April.

On the 27th April the camps were liberated by elements of the British Guards Armoured Division.

The next day, the 28th April, the column finally arrived at Lübeck on the Baltic coast. They were liberated by the British 11th Armoured Division on the 1st May 1945.

Albert John Chinn was born on the 11th January 1917. He was a Salesman in Coventry prior to enlisting in the RAFVR in the 21st January 1940.

Flt Sgt. Barham was amongst the PoWs who were transferred to Stalag 3A, Luckenwalde.

As of 1st January 1945, it housed 45,942 PoWs, including 24,996 French, 12,517 Soviet, 4,093 Serbian, 1,499 American, 1,433 British, 1,310 Italian, 86 Polish and 8 Romanian.

On the 22nd April 1945 as the Russians approached the camp the guards fled leaving the prisoners to be liberated by the Red Army. Stalag 3A was turned over to the Americans on the 6th May at which time the Senior American Officers (SAO) took over the running of the camp until all the PoWs were evacuated.

Leonard Philip Barham was born on the 8th June 1921. He was a Tester/Inspector in Hertfordshire prior to enlisting in the RAFVR on the 23rd November 1941.

(5) Fg Off. Clowes baled out at 01:30 hrs about 20 kms (12½ mls) SW of Beauvais. He buried his parachute, harness and mae west in a deep ditch and then headed west. The following day he approached a man who took him to his farm and provided him with a meal and some civilian clothes.

On the 9th July he made contact with members of the local Resistance movement who took him to various houses in the area of Auneuil, which is about 8½ km (5¼ mls) SW of Beauvais. He eventually reached a farm at Jouy la Grange, about 4½ km (2¾ mls) SW of Auneuil, where he found Sgt. Fagan from his crew.

They remained there until rescued by Allied forces. During this time Sgt. Metcalfe, the rear gunner, was brought by some other members of the Resistance to see them. It was later reported by an unofficial source that he was in the hands of the enemy.

On the 31st August they contacted British troops and they left for the UK from Normandy on the 2nd September 1944.

William Alsopp Clowes was born on the 2nd January 1917. He was an Assistant Manager of a Knitting factory in Leek, Staffordshire prior to enlisting in the RAFVR on the 7th September 1941.

(6) Sgt. Fagan baled out NE of Blacourt, which is some 6½ km (4 mls) south of the crash site, at approximately 01:30 hrs on the 8th July 1944. He hid until 16:00 hrs on the 9th July when he approached a farmer near Blacourt. He provided him with civilian clothes, food and shelter. At 04:00 hrs on the 10th July he began walking south and arrived at Saint-Aubin-en-Bray, which is some 5¼ km (3¼ mls) south of Blacourt, at 16:00 hrs where he approached a farmer and asked for help. An hour later a member of local Resistance group came to the farm and the remainder of his journey was arranged for him.

On the 31st August he contacted British troops at Jouy la Grange, some 12 km (7½ mls) to the SE. He left for the UK from Évreux on the 2nd September 1944.

Albert Frederick James Fagan was born on the 4th July 1921. He was a Wallpaper salesman in Brighton, Sussex prior to enlisting in the RAFVR on the 22nd November 1941.

(7) Sgt. Hay left for the UK from Normandy and landed at RAF Northolt on the 28th August 1944. Not further information about his Escape and Evasion is currently available.

(8) The Escape an Evasion report for Sgt. Metcalfe has not survived and all that is known is that he was liberated in France.

Burial details:

None - Crew Survived.

Researched by Ralph Snape for Aircrew Remembered and dedicated to the relatives of this crew (Jul 2024).

Other sources listed below:

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