THE LAST FLIGHT OF LANCASTER DV 396 PO-B
During the second world war, my father, Bill Denny served with 467 Squadron in No. 5 Group Bomber Command for the Royal Australian Air Force, based at Waddington in England.
The crew of Lancaster Bomber DV 396 PO-B were:
Flying Officer Leslie Reith Landridge;
Sergeant Jack Halstead;
Flight Sergeant Doug G Beverly;
Flight Sergeant Keith C Woolam;
Flight Sergeant William Calder Denny (Bill) (wireless operator / gunner) My Father;
Sergeant Derrick J Allen;
Flight Sergeant W.J. Lemin Gunner
On the evening of the 2nd November 1944, on their 10th operation to Dusseldorf, after they had just commenced their return journey they were attacked by an enemy aircraft. Flight Sergeant William John Lemin had replaced Sergeant B A Davies on the operation due to sickness.
My father (Bill Denny), Jack Halstead, Doug Beverly and Keith Woolam successfully bailed out at altitude. After releasing Bill Lemin from his rear turret, Derrick Allen and Bill were thrown from the disintegrating aircraft.
Les Landridge and Bill Lemin bailed out but died, as they were too low for their parachutes to open properly. Derrick Allen was fortunate in that he landed in a tree and survived. My father, Doug, Keith and Derrick were officially reported safe on 14 November 1944.
Note: Leslie Landridge, aged 20, was the son of Frederick and Flora Margaret Landridge of Brighton, South Australia.
William Lemin, aged 20, was the son of William John and Ruby Mary Lemin of East Albany, Western Australia.
My father rarely spoke to me about his war time experiences and then only when pressed. It was not until many years later, shortly before Dad died, when I again asked him about the events on that fateful day, that I realised how painful his memories had been, and still were for him. He was visibly upset with the recollections and my Mother then commented to him to stop as “He would have the nightmares again".
The story which Dad had related to me about that night had quite a few gaps and it wasn’t until I made contact with Derrick Allen that I became aware of the full story.
I recall Dad telling me that after the attack, one of the crew had been killed and that another, (the tail gunner), had been badly injured. My father recalled a parachute being strapped onto him and pushing him out of the plane. He told me he didn’t know what happened to him after that. After my dad had bailed out and landed, he told me he was walking along a road when a man approached him on the other side. My father ignored him and kept walking. The man then approached him again and showed him a cross. My father then went with this man who offered him shelter.
My uncle later told me that Dad had wanted to contact the people who had helped him but was advised against it. He was told that it would be better that way for the people involved as there could still be repercussions.
His “Observers Air Gunners and W/T Operators Flying Log” book for the 2nd November states the following:
Lancaster ‘B’ DV 396. Flight Officer pilot Landridge.
9th Dusseldorf 14 “J” type incendiary.
Attacked FW190 –1st attack = Port Fin / rudder blown away = Hydraulics of rear turret blown away = Heavy cannon holes in fuselage.
2nd
attack = unable to corkscrew. Port outer on fire from attack.
Shot down – Bailed out near SPA (
Evasive action followed - successful.
One of my father’s most cherished items was his caterpillar badge that was presented to flight crew whose lives had been saved by parachutes. In my father’s case, the red eyes of the caterpillar signify that the plane was on fire when it was shot down.
I have in my possession a letter that Dad had received from one of his flight crew Derrick Allen in 1986. I wrote to Derrick in 2001, asking if he had any information that he could share with me about the crash. Some months later, to my delight I received a phone call from Derrick. He was quite pleased that I had contacted him and we had a long conversation about those events.
He has subsequently sent me more detailed information and photos.
Below is Derrick’s story about these events.
“The last flight of Lancaster DV 396(b) PO-B on 2/3 November 1944
My memories of this trip have now rather faded over the years like most did in the squadron gunnery section crew room with the cryptic message "War Tonight" chalked on the board.
After briefing we learned the target was to be Dusseldorf which at that time was some 50 –60 miles from the American front line position.
The met forecast some cloud cover en-route but clear over the target area. ETA was I believe about 1 hour after midnight.
We had a good trip out and bombed very successfully, with very little cloud, and had just turned off the target area and had set course for base at about 17,000 feet when a gaping hole was shot in the under belly of our Lancaster, about a yard from the Mid Upper Gun position which I was of course occupying at the time.
A German night fighter had spotted our engine exhausts and fired cannon shells into our blind spot, the underbelly of the fuselage.
An FW190 then appeared on the port quarter and we exchanged shots with my rear gunner and myself both giving him the works, but in the battle we lost one of our tail fins and the port engine was also hit and on fire.
The night fighter broke off the attack, possibly damaged and we were left alone in a very badly damaged aircraft rapidly losing height.
Our skipper Les Landridge gave us the order to bale out, and as our Bombardier –W/operator, Flight Engineer and Navigator prepared to jump, our rear gunner, Bill Lemin, shouted over the intercom that his turret doors were jammed, and the skipper asked me to go back and help him.
On getting out of my gun position I realised the extent of damage to the fuselage and my parachute had dropped off the turret step where it always hung onto the floor close to the hole. Having clipped my chute on I made my way aft pausing to open the rear doors and Bill was able to get out and we started to move towards the rear door.
All this time of course Les had been wrestling with the controls up front, the rest of the crew having bailed out at high level.
At this point, the old Lancaster went into a spin, flattening both of us against the rear fuselage. Then she broke in half at the spot where the hole had been torn in her hull, and about the last thing I remember is floating face down and watching a dark mass of earth and trees coming up to meet me, and when I recovered my senses I was hanging in the branch of a tree.
The Lancaster was blazing away in the next field, I got out of my harness and slipped down the tree trunk to be met by a herd of cattle and I beat a hasty retreat over a small hedge.
It was about 2 AM and bright moonlight and having no idea where we had crashed I thought it best to get away from the blazing aircraft, so I headed for an old out-building at the bottom of a garden to a bungalow.
As I sat in the potting shed I could hear dogs barking and a lot of activity and shouting some of which I decided was American, so I walked down to a bend in the road where I was pleased to give myself up to an American GI leaning over a gate. I was then reunited with the rest of the crew. It was then that I learned of the deaths of both Les Landridge and Bill Lemin whose bodies were only a few hundred yards away from my tree.
As a matter of interest most aircrew were a superstitious lot, and the carrying of good luck charms on aircraft was very common, but taking on a spare crew man when some one was sick was really tempting fate.
Our rear gunner that night was a "spare bod" who had never flown with us before, our regular Rear Gunner Bert Davis being unfit, who as it happened was shot down himself a few weeks later flying with another crew and taken prisoner of war.
After we were flown back to London from Brussels I was passed medically fit again to fly and after 21 days leave I joined Terry Evans, DFC to finish the war.
This story has been emailed by Chris Denny, son of the wireless operator/gunner William Calder Denny.
