P/O Charles
Schomberg (pilot)
F/L Hubert Petts (navigator)
F/O Leonard Calderwood (mid up gunner)
F/S James Harden (bomb aimer)
F/S Donald McDonald (tail gunner)
F/S Wilfred Millar (wireless operator)
Sgt Harry Steels (engineer)
This crew
participated in ten missions before their
last one on 23 April 1944. Four of them to
Berlin. The crew had been very unlucky as
they were prone to mishap. On five of the
missions they had to abort due to technical
problems with their plane.
On the night of 22/23 April 1944, this crew
took off from their base Waddington in
Lincolnshire in Lancaster LL892 LO-J on a
mission to Braunschweig (Brunswick).
The plane
encountered problems probably on the way to
the target. An eyewitness in the town of
Wagenborgen saw the plane come over: "The
aircraft came from the direction of
Groningen and was on fire. It was very low
and made a lot of noise. We were surprised
to hear the next day that it crashed all the
way near Nieuwolda." This means the plane
flew in an easterly direction.
The Lancaster
crashed at high speed in a field behind a
farm of the Dokkum family near Nieuwolda.
There was a huge explosion on impact,
probably because the bombs were still on
board. The Lancaster disappeared in the
ground completely. No attempt was made to
salvage the plane. The Germans only salvaged
a few pieces of wreckage and a propeller.
The remains of
the crew were buried together in a communal
grave in Nieuwolda.
(picture by
Wim Bastiaanse)
(picture by
Wim Bastiaanse)
