GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
April commenced with a sortie to Denmark on the night of the 1st-2nd (a.k.a. Operation “Tablejam 44”), but France was back on the
agenda on the 10th-11th, when Blaikie and his crew dropped two S.I.S. agents and containers west of Basel (a.k.a. Operation “Elm”).
Reception committees having failed to show up on their next two sorties, May got off to a better start, containers being dropped near
Nevers on the night of the 3rd-4th.
In June, Flight Lieutenant Loos became Blaikie’s pilot, their first sortie being to Nogent on the night of the 24th-25th, when several
containers were dropped (a.k.a. S.O.E. Operation “Saint 2”), while on the 27th-28th, 15 containers were dropped (a.k.a. S.O.E.
Operation “Fireman II”), but the return journey had to be made on three engines. Then in July, after an early sortie in support of S.O.E’s
“Stationer 130”, three agents were dropped in support of “Playbill” on the 4th-5th, and eight agents in support of “Pelaiseau” on the 7th
-8th, the month being rounded off with four more sorties.
Sadly, on the night of 4th-5th August 1944, in another operation to France in support of S.O.E’s “Bob 166”, Blaikie’s aircraft failed to
return, and it was only on the return of a surviving crew member that the fate of his aircraft became known, a fate later supported by
investigations carried out by the International Red Cross – his Halifax had been engaged and shot down by an enemy night fighter near
Glannes.
Blaikie is buried in a collective grave with six members of his crew in the parish cemetery at Huiron, in Vitry-le-Francois, France, their
bodies having been retrieved from the aircraft wreckage by members of the Resistance. On 11 May 1947, a crowd of over 2000 people
gathered to witness the unveiling of a memorial near the crash site; sold with a file of research, including modern day photographs of
the crash site and memorial, and copied letter from the Mayor of Huiron explaining how the bodies were recovered before the
Germans arrived on the scene, dated 29 December 1945, and copies of speeches made at the time of the unveiling of the memorial.
1350
Flt. Sgt. Woodcock in doorway with crew of Stirling bomber before conversion to Lancasters
A Second World War Path Finder’s D.F.M. group of four awarded posthumously to Flight Sergeant Geoffrey
Woodcock, 7 Squadron, Royal Air Force, an Air Gunner who was killed when his Lancaster bomber was shot down by
enemy night fighters whilst on a raid against Hannover in September 1943
DISTINGUISHED FLYING MEDAL, G.VI.R. (1138811 F/Sgt. G. Woodcock, R.A.F.); 1939-45 STAR; AIR CREW EUROPE STAR; WAR MEDAL,
these last three in card box of issue addressed to his father together with named condolence slip, 12 photographs,
various official correspondence, and his father’s Great War pair (031321 A. Sjt. F. Woodcock, A.O.C.), extremely fine
(6) £1400-1600
D.F.M. London Gazette 10 December 1943. A recommendation for this award has not been traced.
Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Woodcock was the air gunner on Lancaster bomber No. JA849 which on the night of 27/28 September 1943
took off from its base at R.A.F. Oakington for a raid on Hannover. While on route to the target the aircraft was attacked by an enemy
night fighter and the aircraft exploded in mid air killing six of the seven crew members. The seventh crew member Pilot Officer J.
Kanelakos (Air Gunner) became a prisoner of war after being blown clear by the explosion. The crew members who were killed are
buried in the Rheinburg War Cemetery.
www.dnw.co.uk
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