Crash Site Avro Lancaster Mk. III ND357 GT-G

On 14 January 1944 around 8.35pm, the Avro Lancaster Mk. III ND357 GT-G of 156 Pathfinder Squadron crashed at this spot. The aircraft had taken off earlier that day from Warboys airfield towards Braunschweig Germany. After the bombing, the aircraft was shot down on the way back by Oberleutnant Dietrich Schmidt's Messerschmitt Bf 110G. The entire crew of seven was killed in this incident and is buried at the Bergen op Zoom War Cemetary.

The crew consisted of:

Nelson Reuben Mansfield, Pilot, aged 31, New Zealand
Charles Henry Lawrance, Flight Engineer, aged 30, United Kingdom
Edward Sudbury Alexander, Navigator, aged 24, Canada
Bernard Aidan Trott, Bomb Aimer, aged 29, United Kingdom
Charles Roy Swinney, Radio Operator, 26 years, United Kingdom
Victor Norman Cawdery, Back turret gunner, aged 20, United Kingdom
George William Penrose, Tail gunner, aged 30, United Kingdom

The memorial pole placed here in 2023 by the Hollands Kroon Memorial Pole Foundation is located about 100 metres south of the actual spot where the plane came down. A little further into the meadow and accessible only by water, a monument consisting of part of the propeller and the symbol of 156 Squadron was placed earlier.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Stichting Herdenkingspalen Hollands Kroon (1, 2), RAF (3)
• - Crashinfo_ND357_NL | shhk.nl