Toronto, OntarioTarget - Nuremberg, Germany. Two Lancaster aircraft had returned from the target and were preparing to land when they collided and crashed near Nettleham, Lincolnshire, England. FS Pogson, Flying Officer D.C. Reid, Fas D.D. Hoskins, A.J. Eberle, M.V. Durling, and two of the crew, not Canadians, were all killed in aircraft PB 515.
Charles Pogson was originally from Welland, Ontario, where he attended Saltfleet High School, before the family came to the Toronto area suburb of East York.
Graduating from East York Collegiate, Charlie took a job with Bell Canada in maintenance, married Meryl and moved her into the family home while the war got into high gear.
joining the RCAF in September of 1942, Pogson went through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan as a navigator (Toronto [6 ITS], Hamilton, Malton, Valleyfield, and Three Rivers). Heading overseas in March of 1944, he wound up on the mostly Canadian crew of Flying Officer Dan Reid, at Scampton, late in the year.
The team settled in and began counting off operations as 1944 came to an end. The seventh was to be Nuremburg on January 2.
This time everything went well, and the target was hit hard, On the way back, Reid's crew in PB515 began to relax with Lancashire below them and Scampton ahead to the northwest. Over Nettleham, another crew (Geoff Lomax's, in Lancaster I NG421, 150 Squadron), must have been feeling the same way.
The two aircraft collided at 1150 p.m. (2350), both went down quickly, and everyone was killed. source: Sprog by Malcolm Kelly
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
Library and Archives Canada Service Files (may not exist)
