Halifax LK807 B.Mk.III - Bombing Montzen Belgium - 1944-04-27 to 1944-04-27
Squadron: 432 (B) Sqn (RCAF)
Start Date: 1944-04-27
Completion Date: 1944-04-27
Mission: Bombing
Operation: unspecified
Target City: Montzen Belgium
Target Specific: rail yards
Base: East Moor
Take Off Time: 23:36:00
Squadron Code: QO-J
Radio Code:
Return Base:
Return Time:
Crash City: Belgium
Crash Specifics: Hanneche, Burdinne, province of Liege
Crash Latitude: 0.00000000
Crash Longitude: 0.00000000
Crash Reason: fighter
Flak Battery:
Enemy Claim: Leutnant Ewald-Werner Hittler of the 3/NJG 1
War Diary Unavailable
6 Group Unavailable

144 aircraft- 120 Halifaxes, 16 Lancasters, 8 Mosquitoes-of 4, 6 and 8 Groups. The bombing force, particularly the second of the 2 waves, was intercepted by German fighters and 14 Halifaxes and I Lancaster were shot down. Only one part of the railway yards was hit by the bombing. The only Lancaster lost was that of Squadron Leader E. M. Blenkinsopp, a Canadian pilot of 405 Squadron who was acting as Deputy Master Bomber. Blenkinsopp managed to team up with a Belgian Resistance group and remained with them until captured by the Germans in December 1944. He was taken to Hamburg to work as a forced labourer and later died in Belsen concentration camp 'of heart failure'. He has no known grave.

432 Leaside Squadron (Saeviter ad Lucem) RAF East Moor. Halifax BIII aircraft LK 807 QO-J was shot down returning from an operation to bomb the railyards at Montzen, Belgium by night fighter pilot Leutnant Ewald-Werner Hittler of 3/NJG 1, who was flying an He 219 from Venlo airfield in the Netherlands. The Halifax crashed near Hanneche, Burdinne, Liege, Belgium

Rear Air-Gunner Sergeant Royce Desmond Aubrey Harmsworth (RAFVR) was killed in action

Flight Engineer Stanley Musgrove (RAFVR) survived and was taken as Prisoner of War

The remaining four crew members, Flying Officer Arthur Peter Rogerson Holmes (RCAF), Flying Officer Duncan Morrison MacAulay (RCAF), Flight Sergeant Gilbert Millar (RCAF) and Sergeant George Edward H Flather (RAFVR) all survived and became Evaders

There were three 432 Squadron Halifax III aircraft lost on this operation. Please see aircraft serials LW592 QO-A and MZ 588 QO-W for additional information on those aircraft and crews

source: The Bomber Command War Diaries, Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt

Nachtjagd Combat Archive 1944 Part 2 16 March - 11May by Theo Boiten page 101

Unvetted Source [Royal Air Force Serial and Image Database]...

Unvetted Source Aviation Safety Network

Unvetted Source "Belgians Remember Them": RAF aircraft's crash sites: Hanneche

Unvetted Source Hanneche - Halifax III LK807 QO-J 432 Squadron RAF - Halifax JD371...

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