Avro Lancaster

Avro Lancaster Mk. X RCAF Serial FM 213
Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirling, all three aircraft being four-engined heavy bombers adopted by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the same wartime era.

The Lancaster has its origins in the twin-engine Avro Manchester which had been developed during the late 1930s in response to the Air Ministry Specification P.13/36 for a capable medium bomber for "world-wide use". Originally developed as an evolution of the Manchester (which had proved troublesome in service and was retired in 1942), the Lancaster was designed by Roy Chadwick and powered by four Rolls-Royce Merlins and in one version, Bristol Hercules engines. It first saw service with RAF Bomber Command in 1942 and as the strategic bombing offensive over Europe gathered momentum, it was the main aircraft for the night-time bombing campaigns that followed. As increasing numbers of the type were produced, it became the principal heavy bomber used by the RAF, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and squadrons from other Commonwealth and European countries serving within the RAF, overshadowing the Halifax and Stirling. Wikipedia

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Bracelet found at former site of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp France

The Bracelet from War History Online

Sergeant Habgood was just a young man of 21 when he and his fellow airmen left eastern England in a Lancaster bomber. Their goal was to bomb the industrial region of Stuttgart, Germany. But they did not make it. Their plane was shot down by the enemy on July 29, 1944. They had left Killingholme, near Grimsby, only the day before in a Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster I.

There were seven crew members in all. Two were killed in the crash; three were taken by the Germans to a camp in Poland; another escaped and got home to England. The last, Sergeant Habgood, fled the crash site. While hiding in a barn close by, a woman spotted him and revealed his location to the Gestapo.

They seized him immediately and took him to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, the only such camp established by the Third Reich on French soil. He was summarily executed the following day.

Habgood had received his training in Canada during 1943. He had family there, and when he completed his training, they bestowed upon him a small gift: a silver bracelet engraved with his RAF wings, his name, and service number. On the reverse side was one word: "Jean" This was the name of a cousin to whom he was especially close.

In the summer of 2018, as a young girl tended to the floral arrangements that mark the concentration camp, she noticed something in the earth. Though covered in grime, it was Habgood's bracelet. Incredibly, it had not been destroyed, though it lay there for almost 75 years. The names on the bracelet were clearly visible.

Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp France

Habgood had an older brother, Ronald, and a younger sister, Madelene. As Ronald's children grew up, the death of their uncle had not been much discussed. They knew he died in the war, but not much else. Habgood's niece, Marilyn, told a British newspaper last month, "It was never really spoken about. Certainly, my father [Ronald] didnt want to talk about it."

The newspaper escorted Marilyn and her brother Paul when they went to France to see the bracelet. It was then that the horror of their uncle's death truly hit home. "It's incredible it has survived," Marilyn said when given this small, profound piece of her family's history. They have taken some solace in the knowledge that five men were found guilty of being involved in Habgood's death at a trial for war crimes in 1946. One of the German soldiers was sentenced to life in prison; four others were given death sentences, though two of those were later commuted.

Of course, Habgood should have survived as, under the Geneva Convention, first signed in 1929, soldiers were to be taken as prisoners of war (POWs) and not murdered. Before her death in December 2018, Habgood's younger sister, Madelene, said that she hoped the bracelet, along with other items belonging to her brother, would find a home in a British museum.

Paul and Marilyn concur, though no decision on where these items might go has yet been announced.

In France, the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp's crematorium stands as mute testimony to the horrors perpetrated there, including the murder of a young, fresh-faced sergeant who just wanted to serve his country.

Sergeant Habgood's name appears on the RAF's Roll of Honour, 550 Squadron of the North Killingholme Association, in the United Kingdom.

Locatin of Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp