Operation: Laon, France

Date: 22nd/23rd June 1944 (Thursday/Friday)

Unit No: 78 Squadron, 4 Group, Bomber Command

Type: Halifax III

Serial: LK840

Code: EY:J

Base: RAF Breighton, East Riding of Yorkshire

Location:Near Quinquempoix, France

Pilot: Fg Off. David Lloyd Irwin J24814 RCAF Age 23. KiA

Flt Eng: Sgt. Alexander Gill 955101 RAFVR Age 24. PoW No: 53361 * (1)

Nav: Fg Off. Harold Arthur Fuhr J26286 RCAF Age 27. KiA

Bomb Aimer: Sgt. William Stanley Sharratt 1484083 RAFVR Age 26. Id No: 78397, PoW No: 8116 * (2)

WOp/Air Gnr: Fg Off. Brinley Shepstone 157898 RAFVR Age 21. KiA

Air Gnr (Mid Upp): Sgt. William C. Brown 1826198 RAFVR Age? Evader (3)

Air Gnr (Rear): Sgt. Thomas Robert Owen 1301771 RAFVR Age 21. KiA

* Stalag Luft 3 Sagan-Silesia, Germany, now Żagań in Poland. (Moved to Nuremberg-Langwasser, Bavaria).

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

Above: left to right Fg Off. Irwin and Fg Off. Fuhr from their Service Records.

REASON FOR LOSS:

On the 22nd June 1944 24 aircraft from the squadron were detailed to join a force of 221 aircraft on a mission to bomb the railway yards at Laon and Rheims.

They successfully dropped their bombs on the Laon marshalling yards and on the homebound leg they were attacked by a German night-fighter. Only three of the crew survived. The aircraft crashed near Quinquempoix, 6 km (3¾ mls) north of Saint-Just-en-Chausse in France.

LK840 was claimed by Lt. Gerhard Wagner, his 8th Abschuss and second of two this night, from 9./NJG5, 25 km south of Amiens at 3.000 m. at 00:28 hrs. (Nachtjagd Combat Archive (12 May 1944 - 23 July 1944) Part 3 - Theo Boiten)

Oblt. Wagner was shot down by AAA over the Normandy front on the night of the 3rd/4th August 1944. He was severely wounded and was captured by British forces. He was credited with 13 Abschüsse. (Nachtjagd Combat Archive - Biographies - Theo Boiten).

LK840 was one of two aircraft from the squadron that failed to return. The second was Halifax III MZ692 EY:J.

(1) Sgt. Gill was either injured aboard the aircraft or during his parachute jump. The nature of his injuries are not known. He was captured near Chartres on the morning of the 23rd June and was held in the local jail in Beauvis until the 25th June 1944.

He was then transferred to Reserve-Lazarett 9C(A) at Obermaßfeld arriving there on the 1st July 1944. He remained there being treated for his injuries until the 1st September 1944 when he was transferred to Reserve-Lazarett 9C(B) at Meiningen. He was discharged on the 10th November 1944 and transferred to Stalag Luft 7, Bankau arriving there on the 16th November 1944.

On the 19th January 1945, he was amongst the 1,500 prisoners marched out of the camp in the bitter cold. They crossed a bridge over the river Oderon the 21st January, reached Goldberg on 5th February, and were loaded onto a train.

On the 8th February they reached Stalag 3Alocated about 52 km (32 mls) south of Berlinnear Luckenwalde, which already held 20,000 prisoners, consisting mainly of soldiers from Britain, Canada, the US and Russia.

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.

Alexander Gill was born on the 22nd February 1918. He resided on Park Lane in London and was employed as an Aircraft Engineer Fitter in the aircraft industry prior to enlisting in the RAFVR on the 7th March 1940.

(2) Sgt. Sharratt was captured on the 15th July 1944 after being betrayed whilst in hiding in Mesnil-Saint-Firmin and was sent to Fresnes prison in Paris.

This 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 he was 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.

Sgt. Sharratt was transferred to Stalag Luft 3, 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. 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.

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.

During next days, PoWs were divided up according to Compounds, and they were led to railway sidings and loaded into tightly packed carriages.

On the 2nd February Sgt. Sharratt was amongst the PoWs from the North, East and remaining West compound prisoners at Spremberg who were sent to the Malag und Milag Nord PoW camp.

The Malag und Milag Nord PoW camp was located at a former Luftwaffe (German Air Force) barracks near Westertimke NE of Bremen in Germany.

Malag = Marinelager (naval prisoner of war camp) and Milag = Marine-Internierten-Lager (naval internment camp), Nord (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. It is believed that Sgt. Sharratt was amongst the PoWs who fled into the surrounding woods or hid away in the camp to avoid the forced-march.

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. The column slowly headed east, finally crossing the River Elbe, north of Hamburg, on the 18th April. On 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.

At the Malag-Milag Nord camp the guards fled on 9th April 1945 and were replaced by elderly civilian guards. Those remaining at the camp were liberated by the British Guards Armoured Division on the 27th April 1945. He was interviewed on the 3rd May 1945.

William Stanley Sharratt was born on the 12th December 1917. He was a Police Constable in Chorley, Lancashire prior to enlisting in the RAFVR on the 7th July 1941. He passed away on the 7th April 1973 in Chorley in Lancashire.

(3) All that is known about Sgt. Brown’s evasion through France is that he made his way to the Allied camp in the Forêt Fréteval near Châteaudun arriving there on the 30th July 1944.

Note: This camp was part of ‘Operation Marathon’ which was a plan to hide evading Allied airmen in secret camps in France and Belgium. The Forêt Fréteval camp was code named ‘Operation Sherwood’ and eventually held more than 130 Allied airmen. The camp was liberated on the 11th August 1944.

After he and the camp were liberated they made their way to Le Mans where they were loaded onto six trucks which then moved off to Bayeux at high speed along narrow, winding roads. The convoy suddenly came to a bend in the road which was sharper than it look. The first two trucks managed to negotiate the bend safely, the third and fourth swerved and swayed around it but the fifth, aboard was Sgt. Brown, lost control, hit a bank and overturned flinging the occupants everywhere and trapping two Americans.

The last truck managed to stop in time and rendered assistance. Amongst the injured was Sgt. Brown who sprained his left wrist and damaged the fingers on his right hand. The two Americans were successfully freed.

Sgt. Brown returned to the UK on the 15th August 1944 and was admitted to Hospital at RAF St. Athan for treatment to his injuries.

Burial details:

There are only four Commonwealth graves in the Quinquempoix Communal Cemetery.

Above: From left to right: Fg Off. Brinley Shepstone, Fg Off. Harold Arthur Fuhr, Sgt. Thomas Robert Owen, Fg Off. David Lloyd Irwin. (Courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC))

Fg Off. David Lloyd Irwin. Quinquempoix Communal Cemetery Grave 4. Born on the 21st August 1920 in Navan, Ontario. Son of David Campbell and Stella Lyda Jane (née Farmer) Irwin. Husband to Dorothy (née Dery) Irwin of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Fg Off. Harold Arthur Fuhr. Quinquempoix Communal Cemetery Grave 2. Born on the 6th August 1916 in Spring Valley, Saskatchewan. Son of the Rev. Arthur Henry and Anna (née Beckman) Fuhr. Husband to Alvina Kathleen (née Simonson) Fuhr of Holden, Alberta, Canada.

Fg Off. Brinley Shepstone. Quinquempoix Communal Cemetery Grave 1. Grave inscription: ‘DEEP IN OUR HEART A MEMORY OF ONE WE LOVED AND NEVER FORGET. MAM, DAD AND RONALD’. Born in the 4th Qtr of 1922 in Mid Glamorgan, Wales. Son of Thomas and Charlotte (né Tovey) Shepstone of Tonypandy, Glamorgan, Wales.

Sgt. Thomas Robert Owen. Quinquempoix Communal Cemetery Grave 3. Grave inscription: ‘"AND IN THE HUSH OF SETTING SUN HE'LL HEAR HIS MASTER'S WORDS, WELL DONE"’. Born on the 28th June 1922 in Rhostrehwfa, Anglesey, Wales. Son of Robert Frederick and Margaret Grace (née Jones) Owen. Husband of Elizabeth Arme Owen of Inverness, Scotland.

Researched by Ralph Snape for Aircrew Remembered and dedicated to this crew and their relatives of this crew.

Other sources listed below:

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