Crew of Lancaster KB869
The Bowes crew arrived at 419 Squadron on December 31st. 1944 from their heavy converstion training at No.1664.
The crew were to fly seventeen operations together. Ten of which were flown in March alone plus one as Spare Crew
in that month.F/O Bowes and his crew were dedicted to their tasks. When the Lancaster they were flying lost one engine just after take off they still continued on to the target.
March 31st 1945 - Hamburg
This operation was to target the the U-Boat manufacturing yards of Voss near Hamburg. It was a full strength effort placing twenty-eight Moose Squadron Lancasters into action. Things were not to go well for the operation heavy cloud cover masked the target area and most of the bombs missed thier target.
The Group 6 bombers were the last ones to the target and arrived ten minutes late, which deprived them of the heavy fighter escort which had protected the earlier waves. A mention in a number of sources were the remarks of the returning crews of this Group complaining about the unnecessary delay by the gagle leader on the last leg to the target. No explanation of why only a report that RAF Bomber Command said a more senior officer, rather then a Flying Officer, should have been in command of the gaggle.
The delay and lack of fighter protection left the Canadian squadrons vunerable. And they soon were facing thirty Me262 jet fighters, that swarmed in from 10,000 feet and closed in quickly on the slower Lancasters.
It was not the first time Moose Lancasters had come up against these new swift and heavily armed fighters. On March 15th. they had attacked 419 Lancasters. Although at least on Moose Lancaster had sucessfully beaten off multiple attacks by multiple fighters, the squadron was to loose two crews that night KB814 and KB870
The Loss of KB869
What happened to the crew of KB869 was summerized in P/O Milne's POW report, made after his return to Britain.
Milne mentioned that the intercom had been knocked out of operation, which suggests that these events occured after an attack. He continues in his report to tell of seeing the pilot, F/O Bowes motioning his F/E Rea and his B/A Gladis to get out. Milne says he saw the F/E take his helmet off and clamp on his chute. He also observed that the B/A was trying to open the forward hatch.
Then an explosion occured, Milne moved forward to find that the Lancaster's nose was no longer there and anything past the pilot's seat was gone.
From what was written in the report,he along with Rowlands and Berry the three only survivors were made to identify the bodies of the other crewmen. Although the way he worded the report, it sounds like a German Intelligance Officer read off a list of names to which they agreed with.
The Me 262 which attacked KB869 was most likely from Luftwaffe III/JG 7, the heavy caliber shells from it's guns caused severe damage to the Lancaster. Which came down at Hittfeld 9km South of Hamburg at around 0907.
