Thomas Matthew Meir
Thomas Meir was a boot and shoe warehouseman in 1939.
- Family History
- Military history
- Extra information
- Photographs
Thomas Meir was the son of Hilda Hannah and Arnold Meir. In 1939, they lived at 8, Ewell Road, Russell Drive, Wollaton, Nottingham. During the autumn of 1943, Thomas Meir and Mildred May Graham were married at Nottingham and they had a son:
Nottingham Evening Post 30/8/1944 p.4 Births: 'On August 23rd, to F./Sgt. Tom and Mildred (née Graham), the gift of a son (Christopher Thomas).'
DURNBACH WAR CEMETERY Coll. grave 8. E. 5-8.
Lancaster l ME828 took off 1810 12 Sept 1944 from Grimsby with a crew complement expanded to two pilots and two Bomb Aimers. All are buried in Durnbach War Cemetery.
No survivors. Fatalities:
Meir (AB) + Clement Hector Brown (2nd Pilot), Kenneth Ian Cole (Captain/Pilot), Gordon Victor George (AG), Kenneth James Hamiltom (AG), Jack Jeffies (N), Bryan Stanley Kent (AB), Alfred Henry John Plastow (W/Op) and Frank Ritchie (FE).
Seventeen 100 Sqdn Lancasters were part of a 387 aircraft (378 Lancs and 9 Mosquitoes) operation against Frankfurt, ‘the last major RAF raid of the war’ against that city according to Middlebrook and Everitt (War Diaries p. 582). 17 Lancasters (4.5% of the Lanc force) were lost on the raid including ‘F’ - ME.828 in which Thomas Meir perished.
100 Sqdn alone dropped 36 tons of high explosives and 50 tons of incendiaries on Frankfurt that night (100 Sqdn ORB, TNA AIR27-797-18). Unsurprisingly, bombing of this intensity caused severe damage, mainly in western Frankfurt. Damage to industrial property was extensive. 469 people were killed including 172 inside a public shelter when a 2 metre thick concrete wall failed to withstand the blast of a high explosive bomb. A troop train was hit at the west station.
100 Sqdn crews reported ‘fires visible from 100 miles on the homeward journey’ (ORB) and local reports that the last fires were not extinguished for two days confirm this. Problems on the ground were compounded by the absence of many firefighters and rescue workers having been deployed to Darmstadt in the wake of a massive raid 24 hours earlier.
By this stage of the war, sustained heavy bombing was clearly helping to tighten the screws on Nazi Germany. In mid-September, a Hitler Youth labour force and the Organisation Todt were being sent to strengthen the Siegfied Line fortifications, a sure sign allied troops were approaching the homeland.
Unknown
Thomas Matthew Meir's headstone in Durnbach Military Cemetery. His epitaph reads 'DEAREST HUSBAND OF MILDRED VOUS AVEZ MON COEUR TOUJOURS'
Public Domain taken by 'Fiona' via the internet