CAMPAIGN GROUPS AND PAIRS
1235
The attack on Mailly in progress, 3-4 May 1944
Three: Pilot Officer C. Bell, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who was killed in action piloting a Lancaster in the
costly strike on Mailly in early May 1944
1939-45 STAR; FRANCE AND GERMANY STAR; WAR MEDAL 1939-45, extremely fine (3) £250-300
Cyril Bell commenced pilot training in Canada in June 1942, returned to the U.K.
in April 1943 and, having attended assorted conversion and operational training
units, joined No. 207 Squadron, a Lancaster unit, at Spilsby, Lincolnshire, in
early 1944. Thus ensued 18 operational sorties prior to his death in action, his
German targets including Augsburg, Berlin (twice), Essen, Frankfurt (twice),
Munich and Stuttgart (twice).
But it was as a result of the advent of operations against French targets in the run-
up to the Allied landings that Bell was killed in action, his Lancaster being shot
down by a night fighter on returning from the costly strike against an enemy base
at Mailly on the night of 3-4 May 1944. Of this raid, the caption to an
accompanying Air Ministry photograph states:
‘Aircraft of Bomber Command in strong force attacked a large depot of tanks and
lorries at Mailly, 40 miles south-east of Rheims, on the night of 3-4 May. The
Germans reacted violently to the attack on what was evidently an important
military objective and sent up fighters in great numbers. A pitched battle was
fought over the target soon after the attack had begun but the bombing went on
with unfaltering precision. The marking was deliberate and exact and the
bombing was well concentrated round the target indicators. A pall of smoke soon
covered the whole area of the depot and violent explosions were seen through
the smoke with huge flames bursting up. 1500 tons of high explosives and
incendiary bombs were dropped ... This photograph, taken by another of the
attacking aircraft, shows a Lancaster bomber flying just above the towering
columns of smoke.’
Over 40 of our aircraft were lost, the majority of the 320 airmen being killed outright, Bell and his entire crew among them. He is
buried in a collective grave at Dontilly Communal Cemetery, France.
Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Book (R.C.A.F. pilot’s edition), covering the period July 1942 to May 1944, with official
‘Death Presumed’ and ‘Royal Air Force Central Depository’ stamps, dated April 1946; an old carbon copy of an Air Ministry letter
addressed to his widow, dated 19 April 1947, confirming the burial of her husband in a collective grave with his crew; another, dated
22 July 1950, regarding the unveiling of a memorial to him and his crew at their Lancaster’s crash site at Donnemarie-en-Montois,
together with related photographs - ‘The memorial, described as a simple cairn, surmounted by the Cross of Lorraine, was unveiled on
7 May 1950, in the presence of 1,000 people, including a detachment of French troops, bands and local villagers and members of the
resistance movements of the district’; and a poignant run of crew portrait photographs taken in April 1944, shortly before their demise.
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