Crew of Lancaster KB717
A Crew of Changes
P/O Patterson's crew had changed more then once since their arrival on November 20th 1943 from No. 1659 C.U..
P/O Bailey, P/O Derbyshire, F/S Jones, were on all the operations Patterson had taken part in. P/O Woods, RAF had been on 18 sorties and Beckett had been on 15 sorties, with the Patterson crew and two sorties with F/S Hawkes.
Sgt. G.F. Evans was the original Flight Engineer with Patterson and Sgt. M. W. Chalk was his original rear gunner. Squadron Gunnery Leader F/L L.J. Toms had taken the rear gunner position on two of the Patterson ops. An interesting point is that I could find no mention of P/O Patterson's 2nd. Pilot sorties. They do not show up in the Operations Record Book. This is also true of Sgt. Hawkes who also arrived that same day, and yet the captains of three other crews who arrived at the squadron in the days following November 20th were listed with their 2nd. Pilot sorties.
WO II Beckett had originally been with F/S "Doug" Hawkes crew before joining with Patterson on the sortie of the night of February 15/16 1944.
P/O Beckett had combat experience earlier while with Hawkes. During the night of December 29th 1943, he and the Hawkes crew had two encounters with an Me109 night fighter. Beckett had fired on the fighter and been responsible for giving the evasive manoeuvres orders during both of these attacks.
Beckett Combat Report
The others in the Patterson crew were not strangers to rough trips. On March 18/19 while flying Halifax HX189 to a Gardening Op. near Heligoland Bight, the starboard inner engine started to vibrate while crossing the Channel. The Rear Gunner F/S Beckett could see sparks coming from the engine. As they continued on flames began to streak out from the exhaust close to the Wireless Op. position. Patterson decided to continue on, and so they did for another five minutes all the while keeping an eye on the engine. With the threat of the uncontrollable flames spreading fire to the rest of the aircraft and the flames clearly marking the Halifax's presence in the sky Patterson decided to turn back and not continue the operation.
May 22/23 1944 - Dortmund
A force of 361 Lancasters with 14 Mosquitoes were assigned the task of attacking the town of Dortmund. It had been exactly a year to the day when Bomber Command had also attacked Dortmund and the Hoesch Steel Works there.
This was mentioned to be P/O Charles Patterson's 22 sortie, the 22 year old pilot was also accompanied on this sortie by F/O William Mitchell. Mitchell was on his first 2nd. Pilot sortie having arrived at 419 Squadron just three days prior.
This was only the second operation for the crew flying the squadrons new Lancasters. Many of the crews had been trained at their own base by the Squadron Engineer F/L Hall , who had completed the Lancaster course at the A.V. Roe factory.
After the take off of KB717, VR-E on the night of May 22/23 1944 nothing more was heard of this veteran crew. The aircraft is reported to have come down 1 1/2 miles from Munchen-Gladbach.
The crew were originally buried at Munchen-Gladbach before being moved post war to Rheinberg.
F/O William Mitchell joined the RCAF in 1936. He spend a number of years at Dartmouth N.S.
Later he re-mustered as aircrew and was selected for Pilot training. The 30 year old airmen and father of one graduated and received his Pilot wings on July 1943 at Hagersville Ontario.
William came from a family of thirteen. His brother James was with the RCAF for 3 1/2", WO Archie was also in the RCAF and other brother Robert was in the Canadian Dental Corps.
This was the fourth crew lost by the squadron in a time span of ten days, things would not change, as on the very next
operation on May 24th WOII Robson and all his crew flying KB706 were lost.Later he re-mustered as aircrew and was selected for Pilot training. The 30 year old airmen and father of one graduated and received his Pilot wings on July 1943 at Hagersville Ontario.
William came from a family of thirteen. His brother James was with the RCAF for 3 1/2", WO Archie was also in the RCAF and other brother Robert was in the Canadian Dental Corps.
With the loss of their captain, F/O Mitchell's crew were reassigned and returned to the squadron on August 9th and now flew with S/L McGuffin DFC.
Tragically, S/L McGuffin DFC, and his crew were lost when Lancaster KB776 was brought down while over the target area of Essen.
