Month: June 2021

Two crash site tributes on anniversary of Dams Raid

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The AJ-E memorial near Haldern, Germany. (Pic: Volker Schürmann)

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The AJ-Z memorial near Emmerich am Rhein, Germany. (Pic: Curt Fredriksson)

The tributes shown above at the crash site memorials for AJ-E and AJ-Z were left by local people on the 78th anniversary of the Dams Raid, 17 May 2021. I am sure that all readers of this blog are very grateful to those who are responsible for installing and maintaining these memorials. (Many apologies to all concerned for not posting these pictures earlier.)

AJ-E was piloted by Flt Lt Norman Barlow DFC, an Australian who had previously completed a tour of operations in 61 Squadron. While flying at low level towards an attack on the Sorpe Dam, their aircraft hit electricity wires near Haldern and crashed at 2350. All on board were killed.

AJ-Z was piloted by Sqn Ldr Henry Maudslay DFC, commander of 617 Squadron’s B Flight, who had previously completed a tour of operations in 44 Squadron. His aircraft was brought down by flak, returning towards the coast after dropping its mine at the Eder Dam. All on board were killed.

The fourteen men from both crews are now buried in Reichswald Commonwealth War Cemetery, shown below in another photograph by Curt Fredriksson.

We should never forget that as well as the 53 men from Britain and the Commonwealth who died on the Dams Raid another 1,341 lost their lives as a result of the destruction caused by the bombing. 

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Pic: Curt Fredriksson

William Long’s Eastleigh birthplace

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Pics: Eastleigh and District Local History Society

Lyndon Harper has kindly sent me two historic photos showing the house in Eastleigh in which William Long, front gunner in Lewis Burpee’s crew in AJ-S on the Dams Raid, was born. The house, now demolished, was at 166 Desborough Road, a long terrace of houses near the centre of the Hampshire town. William Charles Arthur Long was born here on 11 September 1923, the older of the two sons of William and Ethel Long. His father was described as a baker on his birth certificate.

By 1926 the family had moved to Bournemouth, to a house in Northcote Road, and it was while living there that their second son, Peter George Frank Long, was born in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Boscombe, on 2 February 1926. William Long Sr was described as a “baker and confectioner (assistant)” on Peter’s birth certificate.

Very little more is known about William Long, beyond the fact that his nickname was “Ginger”, which would suggest that he had red hair. He volunteered to join the RAF in October 1941, shortly after his 18th birthday, although he didn’t get posted to an Aircrew Reception Centre until April 1942. He was sent for air gunner training, and was then posted to 106 Squadron in September 1942.

Long flew on two operations, on 17 October with Sgt Lace on the Le Creusot raid and 8 December with Flg Off Healey to Turin, before joining Lewis Burpee on 20 December. He then flew on all the twenty-one further operations flown by Burpee in 106 Squadron, as well as a single trip to Berlin on 16 January with Flt Lt Wellington. He was therefore only five operations short of completing his first tour, after which he would have been due a well-earned rest, when he was killed on the Dams Raid on 17 May 1943, at the age of 19.

As an addendum to this information, Clive Smith has kindly sent me a recently digitised photograph from the IWM collection. It was obviously taken at the same time as a better known image which was released to the press in January 1943 as one of the “crews who bombed Berlin” and has therefore been widely reproduced. According to recent research in The Times archive, it was taken by William Field. Left to right are Gordon Brady, William Long, Guy Pegler and Lewis Burpee, all of whom flew on the Dams Raid. The two on the far right are Eddie Leavesley and George Goodings, who had both finished their tours before Burpee and the other three were transferred to 617 Squadron in March 1943.

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Pic: IWM CH008483