Wood, Ronald Mark
Killed in Action 1945-02-21

Birth Date: 1924
Born:
Home: Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan
Enlistment:
Enlistment Date: Unknown
Service
RCAF
Unit
223 Sqn- Squadron (RAF)
Alae Defendunt Africam Wings defend Africa
Base
RAF Oulton
Rank
Flight Sergeant
Position
Flight Sergeant
Service Numbers
R/176382
First Burial

Took off from Oulton at 22:36 in Liberator Mk VI Sqn code: 6G-J Bomber Command on a Radio Counter Measures mission (dropping chaff) in the direction of Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany.
Shot down by a night fighter and crashed SE of Dortmund, Germany.
Killed includes Wood:Flight Sergeant Desmond Bryant RAF KIA Venray War Cemetery Ref : VII. E. 6., Holland.Flight Sergeant John Henry Kendall RAF KIA Venray War Cemetery Ref : VII. E. 5.Flying Officer John Willard Thompson RCAF J/38084 KIA Pilot Venray War Cemetery Ref : VII. E. 1.Sergeant Edwin Eric Whittaker RAF KIA Venray War Cemetery Ref : VII. E. 3.Flight Sergeant Ronald Wynn RAF KIA Venray War Cemetery Ref : VII. E. 2.
POWs:W/O William Francis Baker RAF POW camp not listed.W/O Ronald Albert Victor Palmer RAF POW camp not listed.Flight Sergeant George Robert Graham RAF POW camp not listed.Flying Officer Ronald Walter Johnson RAF POW camp not listed.F/Sg. Brian Maxwell RCAF R/191140 POW injured and confined to hospital until liberation.
Liberator TS520
Consolidated Liberator B-24 / F-7

Consolidated Liberator G.R. Mk. VIII, RCAF (Serial No. 11130) ex-USAAF Consolidated (Vultee) B-24L Liberator USAAF (44-50154)
ex-RAF (Serial No. 5009), ex-Indian Air Force (Serial No. HE773).
Currently preserved in the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Ottawa Ontario.
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was an American heavy bomber flown by the RCAF during the Second Word War. It was designed with a shoulder-mounted, high aspect ratio Davis wing which gave the Liberator a high cruise speed, long range and the ability to carry a heavy bomb load. Early RAF Liberators were the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean as a matter of routine. In comparison with its contemporaries the B-24 was relatively difficult to fly and had poor low speed performance; it also had a lower ceiling compared with the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Of the roughly 18,500 B-24s built in the USA during the war, 148 were flown by the RCAF on long range anti-submarine patrols, with the B-24 serving an instrumental role in closing the Mid-Atlantic gap in the Battle of the Atlantic. The RCAF also flew a few B-24s post war as transports.
Roughly half of all (RAF) Liberator crews in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre were Canadian by the end of the war. John Muir of Vancouver flew the longest mission of the war: 24hrs, 10mins from Ceylon to Burma and back. (Kyle Hood) Harold Skaarup web page