Photos contributed by W. Hall
For information on F/O Metheral's DFC see our Awards tab
F/O Metheral and crew had a wide range of experinces during their operations with 419 squadron. The crew experienced a controlled belly landing withour harm to the crew after the first attempt at landing had damaged the under carriage. The flying skills of pilot Metheral brought the crew home safely from an operation to Leipzig when he had to feather the inner starboard engine when about 75 miles from the target. Looseing height rapidly causeing the aircraft to bomb at a lower altitude then expected and be late over the target. With all that he managed to bring the Halifax in only an hour later then anyone else. On a raid on Kassel the Luftwaffe had made a dangerous situation even worse by heavy use of flares dropped by night fighters. VR-W was attacked not once but twice by FW-190 coming in from the starboard side firing off long bursts at the Halifax. F/S Marritt in the rear turret fired off rounds in return all the while calling up for manoeuvers to the pilot. Two dummy passes by the nightfighters required more manoeuvers even though the fighters never fired on these passes. Sgt. Pollard had mentioned he had seen hits on the enemy fighter, but no more was made of the attack. Finally on January 26th the crew were screened from any more operations. Becoming the 19th crew of 419 to be screened.After screening crews were either reassigned or went home.