Over
the target area, PB303 was seen to leave the formation
and dive into the clouds. A photograph was taken at the
moment the Lancaster left the formation. It is clearly
visible that its bomb doors are open, the port outer
engine is missing and there is damage to the fuselage.
| |
|
 |
| |
The crew
must have dropped their bombs and
turned back in the direction of
their base. About three quarters
of an hour later, this aircraft
was observed near the town of
Bergen op Zoom and it was on
fire. It crashed close to a
little village of Lepelstraat in
the Southern part of the
Netherlands at about 17.00h local
time. The whole crew lost their
lives. The Lancaster hit the
ground in a meadow just alongside
a small country road called
“Heenweg” (Pos. N
51°32’56.3’’
E 004°15’34.7’’)
near to a farm which at that time
belonged to Mr. Schot.
|
|
|
| |
|
PB303 Leaving the
formation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Recovery of the crew was
not easy and due to difficulty identifying their
bodies, six were buried together in a collective
grave at the Canadian War Cemetery near Bergen op
Zoom. Witnesses have told me, there was a
ceremony at the site of the crash on November
23rd 1944.
It
took some months to clear away the debris and
even today you can still find small metal parts
there. I have recently been informed that there
are still some engines buried deep in the soft
clay.
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
After
the war had ended, people from Holland
were able to adopt the graves of those
gallant warriors who lost their lives to
liberate their country. In this way they
were able to express their gratitude for
their regained freedom and also give some
comfort to the relatives. The adoptions
were organised by the Dutch Wargraves
Committee and someone who adopted a grave
had to take care of it just as if it was
of someone from his or her own family.
They had to put flowers on the grave at
remembrance ceremonies and were also able
to write to the family of this person.
They also had to help to organise an
opportunity for parents or wives to visit
the grave. My mother, Mrs Jane Goossens
was one of the many who adopted several
of the graves.
You
couldn’t choose which graves you
adopted, graves were appointed randomly
by a Committee and by coincidence my
mother got the graves from the crew of
this Lancaster to take care of.
|
|
|
Certificate of Grave Adoption
|
|
|
| |
My mother started writing
to the families and even hosted some of them
later when they came over to Holland to visit the
grave of their husband or son. Mrs. Goossens
couldn't speak English, because she never
had the opportunity to learn it when she was at
school. Therefore she first had to write her
letter in Dutch, and pass it to a neighbour who
translated it for her, she then copied the
translated letters herself. This was quite some
work. Her neighbour also translated the letters
she received. When I was about 18 years old, I
had learned some English myself, so I was then
able to do the translations for her.
|
| |
|
| |
I
can remember some visits from relatives,
but as I was only 4 or 5 years of age
then, my memory isn't very clear about
it. For instance I still can remember the
visit by the widow of Sgt Harris. She
stayed at our home whilst she was in
Holland and my mother accompanied her to
the cemetery several times. Also Mrs
Smith and Mrs Perry stayed at our home .
Both mothers lost their sons during the
war.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 John
Smith
|
|
My mother
kept in touch with several of the
relatives for a very long time,
but after many years, contact
sadly faded away or even stopped
altogether. Only Mrs Perry kept
writing, until her daughter took
over the contact with my mother
and kept in touch for a very long
time. After a while this daughter
handed over these contacts in
turn to her own daughter. This
daughter is still writing to the
family. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When my mother
had to move to an elderly people’s
home (this was in 1990), she asked me if
I would take over the correspondence on
her behalf. So I wrote to the niece of
F/O Perry (on the photograph) and also a
few of my mothers other English friends.
I told them I would be acting as
go-between for my mother, who later had
to move to a nursing home.
|
|
F/Sgt Harris with his wife Katie
|
|
|
| |
I have to say that these
contacts always were very friendly and all those
friends of my mother also became very dear
friends of my wife and myself. When my mother
passed away (in 1992) I had to inform those
friends and they all felt very sad at losing a
dear friend, but everyone kept in touch with me.
So now I still write to FO Perry's niece, Mrs.
Sheila Burnett, from Taunton and she has also
become a dear friend of ours.
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Until 1999 I knew
nothing about the history of this
aircraft. But one summer evening, while
we were on vacation near Hull, I spoke
via my amateur radio station, to a former
Spitfire Pilot from Hull, Mr Gordon
Rutherford. In this conversation I told
him about the crew whose graves my mother
had adopted. I told him, I had inherited,
in a matter of speaking, these adoptions
and therefore I was curious to know more
details about that aircraft. I even
didn’t know which type of aircraft
it was. I could only remember a
photograph on my mother’s cupboard.
On it there was a crew in front of their
machine, but unfortunately, that
photograph was lost a long time ago. |
|
|
|
| |
|
He asked me to send him
the details, so he could do some research for me.
He answered, a few months later and told me the
aircraft was a Mark III Lancaster and he also
gave me most of the details you can read at the
beginning of this document. According to his
details, the site of the crash was
“Steenbergen Zuid Holland 8 km Northwest
from Roosendaal”. I was very pleased with
the data he found and for me it was enough.
|
| |
|
|
|
In
August 2000 I received a letter from Mr
Gordon Smith, who was a cousin of F/O
John Smith (see photograph). He told me,
he obtained my address from Mrs Sheila
Burnett and he asked me if I could help
him to get more details about the crash,
such as the exact location of the crash
and also who now tends the grave of his
cousin. This was the reason I began my
research. First I spoke a historian from
the town of Steenbergen. I asked him if
he could tell me ecxactly where this
aircraft had crashed. He told me about
the crash of Guy Gibson and his navigator
Jim Warwick's Mosquito which was shot
down near Steenbergen on September 19th
1944. The people of Steenbergen erected a
monument for them with, as a main object,
a propeller from a Lancaster that crashed
near Monnickendam.
The
crash of this Mosquito was about 6 weeks
before the Canadian forces liberated my
hometown of Bergen op Zoom.
|
|
Arthur & Lillian Smith
|
|
| |
| |
| |
This historian also told
me, according to his knowledge no Lancaster had
crashed in his hometown at all. So I had to
search further. The next day I went to the city
archives in Bergen op Zoom and there I read
archived newspapers from those days. I learned a
lot about the liberation of Bergen op Zoom, which
was on October 27th, but after a few hours of
searching I still hadn’t found anything
about a crash involving this Lancaster. You must
remember that it was just a few days after the
liberation and for a while there was a shortage
of everything, including paper to print on.
Therefore newspapers were much smaller in those
days than they used to be and much of its space
then was occupied with messages from the military
authorities. I think that's the reason this crash
was not important enough to get published. I
nearly gave up, until I spoke to Mr
Vanweesenbeeck who is the town archives master.
|
|
He
told me there was a portfolio in the
archives written by Mr. Van Hoof. In this
portfolio I found out more details about
the crash. Once I knew the exact
location, I contacted a number of people
about the crash and was able to find
several eyewitnesses including a lady who
is the daughter of the farmer who lived
near the crash site. She wasn’t at
home when the crash happened, but upon
her return she saw a most horrible sight.
Now (in August 2000) her daughter is
living in the same farmhouse. One of the
eyewitnesses told me about the
front-line. It was about the place where
the wreck of this plane was. Not
very far from this crash site there still
were some Germans, who were covering the
retreat of the German Army, a few of them
came towards the wreckage, but retreated
when a Canadian Jeep appeared.
|
A few days later, on
November 4th there was an accident near to the
crash site, when a Canadian jeep hit a mine and
both occupants lost their life there too.
|
| |
|
| |
My hope is that this
story helps to remember all those who gave
everything for our freedom today. Not only those
who actually lost their lives, but I think we
must also remember the sorrow of all those
mothers, wives and children.
Therefore,
I hope we have never
to see this kind of madness again.
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
I started to write this
report in August 2000 and I’ve learned that
it will never be completed, because we shall
never know what exactly happened inside this
aircraft before it crashed.
|
| |
|
|
| |
| November
2000. Ben Goossens
Supplement,
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
The story
above was published (in Dutch) in
a local newspaper here in Holland
on December 3rd 2000.
At that
time it was already known that
besides F/O Perry's niece and a
cousin of F/O Smith, there was
also a brother of Sgt. Clifford
Cook. This brother responded to
an advertisement in a
legionnaires magazine (issue
May/June 2000) in Canada and
wrote to Mr. Gordon Smith.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
 Click image to
view full size
Article reproduced by kind
permission of Redditch
Advertiser
|
|
He
told him he was in the Canadian Army
during the war and had joined the allied
forces on D-day in Normandy. All his
brothers were in the services. One of
them was, like him serving in the Royal
Canadian Artillery, another was in the
Navy and his youngest brother was in the
Royal Canadian Air Force, because he was
not old enough yet to join the army. Mr.
Gordon Smith forwarded me a copy of this
letter.
A
brother in law of F/O
George Symes read the
same advertisement,
handed over by a
neighbour in November
2000. After this, George
Symes' sister wrote to
Mr. Smith.
|
|
|
George
Symes
|
|
|
| |
He
was very surprised to hear that this pilot also
had a daughter. He wrote back to her and he also
sent her the crash details we have. The pilot's
family didn’t know exactly where and how
their brother died. They thought it was Hamburg
where he crashed with his aircraft, but we found
out he was shot up over Homburg (near Duisburg in
Germany) and he finally crashed near Bergen op
Zoom in Holland. Geordie (as his family called
him) met his wife Sheena for the first time on a
Halloween Dance on their high school.
After her graduation
Sheena moved to Toronto. Geordie joined the Royal
Canadian Air Force in the fall of 1939 and was
posted to a base near Toronto. There he met
Sheena again and they married in Toronto on
February 2nd
1940. He was ground crew first, but he remustered
to aircrew. He took his basic training in eastern
Canada and later undertook pilot training in
Manitoba. From that time Sheena lived with
Geordie’s family in Winnipeg. Sheena
wasn’t able to attend Geordie’s
graduation as a Pilot in July 1943, because she
was expecting the birth of their child
–Geraldine- born August 17th
1943. Geordie was posted overseas on August 3rd
1943, so he never met his daughter. Sheena and
Gerri (short for Geraldine) continued to live
with Geordie’s family for several years
after Geordie’s death, until Sheena joined a
friend in Alberta.
Sheena finally died in
July 1999. On 22 June 2001 Gerri visited Bergen
op Zoom and interred the her mothers ashes into
her father's grave
I have reproduced the
family story in this supplement from a letter of
Mrs Gene Olson, who is a sister of F/O George
Symes.
With this story I honour
and salute the crew-members and their families
because now I know, there was so much sorrow in
families that lost their husbands, sons or even
their fathers.
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
June
2003
An
article was published in the Metheringham
Newsletter, an old friend of pilot F/O
George Symes read it and sent me a
letter. He told about his flying course
and his friendship with George Symes and
his family. He also sent me a few
photographs of himself and his mates
taken at the time he was studying for his
wing in Canada.
|
|
Trainees at Manitoba
|
|
| |
|
| |
 |
|
He
first meet George Symes there and they
often visited the Symes family when they
could get a leave permit. He sent me a
copy of a photograph of the graduates on
Wings Parade day (July 1943) in Souris
Manitoba
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
