Operation: Koln (Cologne)

Date: 3/4th July 1943 (Saturday/Sunday)

Unit: No. 460 Squadron

Type: Lancaster I

Serial: W4844

Code: AR-?

Base: RAF Binbrook

Location: Target area - Colgne

Pilot: P/O. Clifford Edwards AUS/411885 RAAF Age 31. Missing

Fl/Eng: Sgt. Alan Edwin Tytherleigh 1623946 RAFVR Age 19. Missing

Nav: F/O. Walter Frank Spier AUS/421093 RAAF Age 21. Missing

W/Op/Air/Gnr: Fl/Sgt. Cyril Francis Joseph Truscott AUS/22378 RAAF Age 23. Missing

Air/Gnr: Sgt. Charles Young 1074494 RAFVR Age 30. Missing

Air/Gnr: Sgt. William John Rees 1317610 RAFVR Age 20. Missing

Air/Gnr: Fl/Sgt. Lancelott James Frazer AUS/420653 RAAF Age 20. Missing

We welcome any further information from relatives that can be used to expand this page of remembrance.

REASON FOR LOSS:

Took off at 23.29 hrs from Binbrook to join 652 aircraft to bomb the part of the city based on the east bank of the Rhine as a great deal of industry was situated there. 

The raid was considered a success with 20 industrial premises and 2,200 houses were completely destroyed with a loss of life on the ground placed at nearly 600 people killed, a further 1,000 injured and a massive 72,000 people bombed out of their homes.

The allies suffered the loss of 30 aircraft - the majority being claimed by the night fighters from the jagdgeschwader 300 using the "wild boar" technique and consequently all the claims were shared with the flak units based in the city.

This technique (New to the allies) were attacks made (in this raid) single engine fighters and the German pilots used searchlights, target indicators and the glow of fires from the ground and the idea being that the local flak units limited the firing at a certain height allowing the Luftwaffe to attack the bombers over this height.

All contact with Lancaster W4844 was lost without trace and no definitive claim can be realised from the list submitted by the German Night Fighters. 

However we have, with the assistance of Theo Boitens research been able to narrow it down to the pilot listed below. Combat taking place over the target area at 01.55hrs. at a height of between 5,000 - 6,000mtrs.

Ofw. Heinz Lönneker N.J.V.K (Killed 1st January 1945 - no further details)

Fl/sgt. Lancelot Frazer (shown above) prior to enlisting in November 1941, worked as a butcher. Trained under the EATS Scheme in Australia, Canada and England.

Runnymede Memorial (Aircrew Remembered archives)

P/O. Clifford Edwards. Runnymede Memorial Panel 191. Son of Ernest and Maud Florence Edwards; husband of Elizabeth Edwards, of Nathalia, Victoria, Australia.

Sgt. Alan Edwin Tytherleigh. Runnymede Memorial Panel 167. Son of E. A. Tytherleigh, M.M., and Mrs. M. E. Tytherleigh, of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England.

F/O. Walter Frank Spier. Runnymede Memorial Panel 189. Son of Reginald Vincent Spier and Dorothy Zoe Spier, of Warrawee, New South Wales, Australia.

Fl/Sgt. Cyril Francis Joseph Truscott. Runnymede Memorial Panel 194. Son of Sidney Austin Truscott and Julia Gertrude Truscott, of Ashgrove, Queensland, Australia.

Sgt. Charles Young. Runnymede Memorial Panel 171. Son of George and Isabella Young, of Torphins, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Sgt. William John Rees. Runnymede Memorial Panel 289. Son of Morfydd Rees, of Porthcawl, Glamorgan, Wales.

Fl/Sgt. Lancelott James Frazer. Runnymede Memorial Panel 192. Son of Joseph Lancelot and Louisa Anne Frazer, of Gosford, New South Wales, Australia.

With thanks to the following, Bill Chorley - "Bomber Command Losses", Theo Boiten - "German Nightfighter War Diaries", Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt "Bomber Command War Diaries". The CWGC.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning we will remember them. - Laurence Binyon
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