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RAF aircraft's crash sites in Province of Luxembourg:
Wellin

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Last update: 25/06/23


Elegy to
the Heroes of Silence


* To the 420 Squadron *
* To the crew of HE682-PT-T *
* To the monument erected in remembrance *
* Cemetery where rest the crew *
* Cemetery where rest the crew *

Crash site of Wellington HE682-PT-T
17/04/1943

aircraft
cest raf squadron
Unit: 420 Squadron
Aircraft: Wellington
Code: HE682-PT-T
Base: Middleton-St-George
Mission: Plzen
Crew officer:
Incident: Shot down by German fighter

Location: (Prov. Luxembourg)

crash

Facts

Shot down by a night fighter Ofw Rahner I./NJG4, the Wellington exploded near Froidlieu (near Wellin)

At 21hr14, (British local time, so 22hr15 at home), this bomber had taken off from its air base at Middleton-St-George in England. It was one of the aircraft of the 271-bomber armada that had Mannheim in Nazi Germany as its objective, but this bomber never achieved its objective. In fact, just 45 minutes after its flight, and about over the Franco-Belgian border, the bomber was intercepted by the enemy. A Messerschmitt Bf-110 driven by Oberfeldwebel Erich Rahner of 3./NJG4 (Staffel 3 of Nachtjagdgeschwader 4, based in Florennes) attacked the Wellington front at 4500 meters altitude. Within seconds, the nose of the aircraft turned into an incandescent furnace. Flames spread along the fuselage and wings. Suddenly, a wing was detached, and the aircraft turned, spiraling toward the ground. In its fall, the bomber also lost its second engine. The bomber crashed at the "Fagne" site between Sohier and Froid-Lieu, igniting a small softwood lumber. He was at that time 23 pm local time.
Soon, a hundred villagers rushed to the scene of the tragedy, but a slight explosion and the heat of the fire prevented them from getting even closer to the wreck and they had to take cover. Fortunately by them, because a second, much larger, blast projected debris in a 200-metre perimeter around the wreckage, while leaving a large crater. The reason for the explosions was that the aircraft had not reached its target and that all the explosives were still in its bomb bay.
The next day, early in the morning, the Germans arrived and, very quickly, they sealed the whole area of the crash. The German driver also went down to confirm and claim his «kill». The villagers were tasked with searching for the remains of the airmen, but only three were found. The body of the fourth victim was thrown far away from the wreckage during the second heavy bomb blast and its remains were only discovered by villagers several days after the fact. A carpenter from Wellin made him a coffin and the body was later buried. at the communal cemetery, unlike the three others who had already been buried at Saint-Trond.
The Germans removed the bombs and ammunition that had not yet exploded. Then they scrupulously gathered all that remained of the British bomber. The debris was loaded onto a railway car at Rochefort and subsequently evacuated to a landfill ("Beutekamp") at Nanterre where the metals were sorted, melted and recycled. The crater was plugged and levelled, but a slight depression remained noticeable for a long time.
Sgt Kenneth T.P. Allan, a Canadian, a tail turret gunner, managed to parachute out of the aircraft and was the only one to survive. His survival was due to the fact that he was in the tail of the aircraft at the time of the Luftwaffe night fighter’s frontal attack. He managed to escape and was housed for 7 weeks in a family in Baronville (Beauraing). When he was taken in by agents of the resistance to prepare for his extradition to England, he was duped by a double agent (a German spy infiltrated in the underground networks) and the Gestapo arrested him in Charleroi. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war at Stalag 357. He survived his captivity and returned to Ontario after the war.
The family that had discreetly sheltered the allied aviator paid the high price: arrested on 7 June by the Gestapo, the parents were imprisoned, interrogated under torture and sentenced to death. The father and one of his friends and a secret agent were shot at the Brussels National Shooting Range. The mother died in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Their two teenage sons were imprisoned in a disciplinary institute in Germany until their release in 1945 by the Allies.

The four crew members who died in the crash were:
Flight Sgt Lawrence Melville Horahan, R/127784, pilot, 23, Toronto Canadian.
Flight Sgt James Earlisaacs, R/124524, navigator, 35, Burin/Newfoundland Canadian.
Sgt Horace Stanley Pullenradford, 1206438, radio operator, 34, Hounslow Englishman.
Initially buried in Saint-Trond, these three men are now buried in the communal cemetery of Heverlee.
Grave Froid-Lieu, Sgt Lester Kenneth Plank, R/113191, navigator, 21, Bluffton/Alberta Canadiens. It rests in the communal cemetery of Froid-Lieu (Sohier, commune of Wellin). His body was found several days after and far from the scene of the tragedy as he had been thrown away from the wreckage by the explosion. A Wellin carpenter made him a coffin and the body of the Canadian was later buried in the communal cemetery. That is why Sgt Lester Plank is not resting in Heverlee alongside the other victims of the crash.
Source: Translated from "La Petite Gazette.net

Sources:

The International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC)
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)
Aircrew Remembered
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