Commonwealth War Graves Merville-Franceville-Plage

Merville-Franceville-Plage Cemetery contains one Commonwealth war grave from the First World War and six from the Second World War.

The First World War grave is that of an unknown serviceman of the Royal Army Medical Corps who was washed ashore here after drowning on 3 August 1917.

The Second World War graves are those of the crew of a Lancaster bomber.
"On 18 April 1943, at approximately 2121 hours (LT), Lancaster serial number W4849, fuselage code GT-G, belonging to the RAF No. 156 Squadron, took off from its base Warboys in Huntingdonshire, England, on a bombing raid with twelve other bombers. The target that night was the shipyards at Spezia, located in the province of Ligurgia on the west coast of Northern Italy. It is believed that on the return flight at approximately 0520 hours on 19 April 1943, over the Normandy coast, near Caen, this bomber was shot down by FLAK and crashed on or near one of the later invasion beaches of Gold, Juno or Sword. This crew, who were killed in its entirety, had been assigned to this operational squadron less than four weeks earlier, on 23 March 1943.

Of the seven-man crew, six were from the bomber recovered and buried at the Merville-Franceville Plage General Cemetery in the Calvados region of France. The seventh crew member was believed to have been washed out to sea. One of the recovered airmen was identified as drill gunner Sergeant Alban Kenneth Eley who was given a headstone with his name on it.

It is not known which crew member was washed out to sea so the five remaining crew members are buried as unknown with the following text:
"Crew of Lancaster W4849". The English graves service never performs DNA tests on war victims so it will never be possible to determine which crew member was washed out to sea.

Apparently, one or more relatives have attached emotional value to the grave over time in order to commemorate their family member, the then 20-year-old bombardier Sergeant Jacobus Jardine Vaulkhard, together with his other crew members, at this grave, without being 100 percent certain that his body was not washed out to sea.

The full crew consisted of:
Sergeant Godfrey Storian Cooper, 21, Pilot
Sergeant Ronald Harrison, 20, Flight Engineer
Sergeant James Jardine Vaulkhard, 20, Air Bomber
Sergeant Kenneth Coulson, 21, Navigator
Sergeant David Roy Edwards, 22, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner
Sergeant Alban Kenneth Eley, 21, Air Gunner
Flight Sergeant RCAF Neil Owen Robinson, 21, Air Gunner

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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries + Corin Gelderblom
• Photos: Corin Gelderblom (1, 2, 3), Patrick van der Kieft (4)