The crew
consisted of pilot F/S Lee, Flight
engineer Sgt A F Gunnell, Navigator Sgt H L
Pike, Wireless Operator Sgt Laurance Jones,
Bomb Aimer F/S Keith Bell (RAAF), rear gunner Sgt
Graham Johnson. F/S Wilkinson was the mid
upper gunner on Lancaster II DS834 KO-F.
They took off
from their base at 17.28. The weather was
dismal, hindering the bombers but also
keeping the luftwaffe at their bases for a
long time. From 17.00 the Germans reported
the Bombers coming in, quickly discovering
that Berlin would be tonight's target.
F/S Lee
reached Berlin, dropped their bombs and
turned to fly back home. All seemed well. At
the Dutch/German border contact was made
with the Bf-110 flown by Lt. Otto Fries of
5./NJG1, stationed at St. Trond in Belgium.
Lt. Fries had been patrolling his 'box' when
the ground controller vectored him to the
Lancaster of F/S Lee. A fierce fight would
soon ensue. At exactly 22.00 Lt. fries
started his attack. Slowly he maneuvered his
night fighter underneath the Lancaster. Just
at the moment he fired his guns, he was made
out and the tail gunner of the Lancaster,
Sgt Johnson, fired at the German plane. Both
seemed to miss. The pilot, F/S Lee took
extreme evasive action to shake the German.
Both bomber and night fighter found
themselves in a 'corkscrew'. For more than
ten minutes the two planes were engaged in a
deadly fight which looked more like a dog
fight between two fighter planes. The
Germans later reported that the Lancaster
pilot took evasive action which seemed
incomprehensible to do with a heavy bomber
like the Lancaster. It was desperately
trying to reach the safety of a layer of
clouds. For more than ten minutes the planes
were maneuvering, hardly able to take aim at
each other. At one point F/S Lee was
demanding so much from his plane and pushing
the Lancaster to it limits, that Lt. fries
saw the wings vibrate under the stress.
At one point,
16 minutes after the engagement had begun,
Lt. Fries first fired a salvo into the right
inner engine, which began to trail smoke.
Then he hit the left wing, which exploded.
Apparently he had hit the fuel tank. The
Lancaster slid over its left side and went
down. It disappeared in a layer of cloud and
not long after the crew saw a orange glow.
Three of the
crew, F/S Lee, Sgt A F Gunnell, and Sgt H L
Pike managed to bail from the plane. The
others went down with it and died when it
crashed near the Dutch town of Tungelroij,
near Weert.
Sgt Gunnell
managed to evade and avoid capture. The
other two were captured not long after they
landed by parachute.
All four are
buried at the Weert (Tungelroij) Roman
Catholic Cemetery.
