Raymond Samuel Louis Day

Germany BECKLINGEN WAR CEMETERY 11. B. 4.

Hamburg

Lancaster I W4962 took off 22.22.Langar on 27th July 1943. Shot down by a night-fighter flown by Maj Walter Ehle 11/NJG1. The Lancaster came down at Glinde five miles east of the city centre, the twelfth plane lost that night.

This was only the crew’s second combat operation. There were five fatalities: C Burne (P), RH Connor (W/Op), DM McCulloch (AB), RSL Day (AG), R McWilliams (AG). Two crew members became pows: Ernest Henry Eke (FE) (wounded) & Harry Pattie (N).

This attack was part of Operation Gomorrah, the virtual destruction of Germany’s second city. Allied bombing on 27/28th July 1943 generated a firestorm so intense that it has not been possible to accurately compute an exact civilian death total. 38,000 can only be an approximation.

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