MISCELLANEOUS
Burns and two members of crew standing in front of their Lancaster at Ras-el-Ma in French Morocco, and another of the entire crew; a photograph of 11 ‘Dambuster’ pilots on R.A.F. Scampton’s mess steps the morning after raid, 617 Squadron aircrew outside Buckingham Palace, and Guy Gibson, H.M. the King and Air Vice-Marshal Cochrane inspecting a diorama of the Eder Dam; the recipient’s original grave in Belgium, marked by a white cross.
(viii) A birthday card from the recipient’s mother, annotated to say that he saw it although he was killed a week before his 23rd; together with three wartime period Christmas cards, all to the recipient from family and friends.
(ix) Assorted wartime newspaper cuttings, including “Dudley Airman in Dam Raid”, “Dam Raid Hero Dead” and “Dudley Family’s Part in War.”
(x) A quantity of post-war documentation, including a copy of Paul Brickhill’s The Dambusters, as sent to the
recipient by 617’s ex-Intelligence Officer, with commentary on inaccuracies in the book; a menu for the occasion of the dedication of 617’s Memorial on 17 May 1987, signed by Richard Todd, a menu and Order of Service card for the raid’s 50th Anniversary, 19 May 1993 and assorted invitations for 617 reunions and related parking tickets.
(xi) A letter from Mrs. Janet Maynard, the mother of Flight Sergeant Thomas Maynard, who was killed with the
recipient in December 1943, dated 8 October 1950, in which she reports on her visit to their graves in Belgium and encloses photographs.
(xii) A letter from Leonard Cheshire to the recipient’s sister, Dorothy Mundon, dated 20 June 1983, in which he tries to reassure her over the circumstances of her brother’s death.
£4000-5000
Stephen Burns, a native of Dudley, Worcestershire, enlisted in the Royal Air Force in January 1941 and qualified as an Air Gunner in October 1942.
Posted to No. 57 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of R.A.F. Scampton, at the end of the following month, he served as a Mid- Upper Gunner in assorted crews before joining Sergeant Geoffrey Rice’s aircraft as Rear Gunner. His first sortie - a ‘gardening’ trip flown in early December 1942 - was followed by another eleven operations. Thus regular bombing strikes on such targets as Nuremburg and Stuttgart, in addition to - as per Burns’s flying log book entries - eventful sorties to Essen on 9 January - ‘7 hits by flak’ - and Bremen on 20 February - ‘4 hits by flak’.
On transferring to 617 Squadron April 1943, the recently commissioned Geoffrey Rice and his crew - Burns now firmly embedded as his Rear Gunner - commenced a flurry of low-level cross-country exercises in readiness for Operation “Chastise” on 16-17 May: detailed to attack the Sorpe Dam in 617‘s second wave of five Lancasters, it was Burns’s 13th sortie.
Operation “Chastise”
Owing to the distance and route involved, 617’s second wave was in fact the first to depart Scampton, the five pilots and their crews taking-off in quick succession around 9.30 p.m. First off was Flight Lieutenant Barlow, whose Lancaster was shot down by flak; second, Flight Lieutenant Munro, who had to return to base after his aircraft was hit by flak; third, Pilot Officer Byers, whose aircraft was also downed by flak; fourth, Geoffrey Rice, of whom more later; and fifth, Flight Lieutenant McCarthy, the only pilot in the second wave to achieve some degree of success.
Of the fate of Lancaster AJ-H (ED-396), piloted by Rice, with Burns manning the rear turret, John Sweetman’s Operation Chastise takes up the story:
‘The fourth aircraft in the second wave was not shot down, but it suffered a bizarre experience. Like Munro, its pilot was forced to abort the operation. At 2131 Pilot Officer Rice left Scampton in AJ-H (ED 936/G), also bound for the Sorpe Dam. Navigation presented a problem as, flying entirely alone, the crew found it easy to get off track. Rice admitted that “at times you didn't really know where you were.” Conditions were perfect, however, and the Lancaster crossed the North Sea without trouble. MacFarlane, the navigator, took drifts at intervals by dropping flame floats which the Rear Gunner [Burns] looked at through his reflector sight, confirming that drift was virtually nil. When two minutes short of Vlieland the crew recorded seeing the loss of an aircraft, probably Byers’. At low altitude, once the enemy coast had been identified Rice found the aircraft committed to its crossing point, and at 2259 AJ-H flew over the predicted narrow neck of Vlieland without having made the designated course adjustment at 53°20’N 04°54'E but with the mine fuzed at 2255. Rice was flying so low that he had to pull up over the sand dune, and once across the island he climbed to confirm his position, sank low again and turned south-east along the briefed track.
www.dnw.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286 |
Page 287 |
Page 288 |
Page 289 |
Page 290 |
Page 291 |
Page 292 |
Page 293 |
Page 294 |
Page 295 |
Page 296 |
Page 297 |
Page 298 |
Page 299 |
Page 300 |
Page 301 |
Page 302 |
Page 303 |
Page 304 |
Page 305 |
Page 306 |
Page 307 |
Page 308 |
Page 309 |
Page 310 |
Page 311 |
Page 312 |
Page 313 |
Page 314 |
Page 315 |
Page 316 |
Page 317 |
Page 318 |
Page 319 |
Page 320 |
Page 321 |
Page 322 |
Page 323 |
Page 324 |
Page 325 |
Page 326 |
Page 327 |
Page 328 |
Page 329 |
Page 330 |
Page 331 |
Page 332 |
Page 333 |
Page 334 |
Page 335 |
Page 336 |
Page 337 |
Page 338 |
Page 339 |
Page 340 |
Page 341 |
Page 342 |
Page 343 |
Page 344 |
Page 345 |
Page 346 |
Page 347 |
Page 348 |
Page 349 |
Page 350 |
Page 351 |
Page 352 |
Page 353 |
Page 354 |
Page 355 |
Page 356 |
Page 357 |
Page 358 |
Page 359 |
Page 360 |
Page 361 |
Page 362 |
Page 363 |
Page 364 |
Page 365 |
Page 366 |
Page 367 |
Page 368 |
Page 369 |
Page 370 |
Page 371 |
Page 372 |
Page 373 |
Page 374 |
Page 375 |
Page 376 |
Page 377 |
Page 378 |
Page 379 |
Page 380