The Last Flight Of
Lancaster LM479 –
Remembered in
Denmark
by John J. Chalmers
442 Reeves Crest
Edmonton AB T6R 2A3
Tel. 780-435-8194
(Photo gallery and related links at end of article)
Lancaster bomber of World War II. The “SR” marking on the fuselage indicates RAF 101 Squadron.
Of all Lancasters built during the war, only 26 survive today. Only two are in flying condition,
one of which is in Canada at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Hamilton International Airport
in Ontario.
Present-day squadron crest is shown below.
Motto, “Mens Agitat Molem,” translates as “Mind Over Matter.”
At 2130 hours on August 29, 1944, Avro Lancaster bomber number LM479 lifted off from the airfield at Ludford Magna in England, some 20 kilometers northeast of Lincoln and about the same distance west of the North Sea coast. Aboard the aircraft was a crew of eight, four from the RAF and four Canadians from the RCAF.
The bomber was one of 403 Lancasters on a bombing mission to Stettin, Germany, a supply port city about 55 kilometers south of the Baltic Sea at Pomeranian Bay. Stettin was also the site of shipbuilding yards, an oil refinery and a rubber factory. Likely, all these made the city a target for bombing raids.
Lancaster LM479, built by A.V. Roe & Co. Ltd. in Yeadon, Yorkshire, was from the Royal Air Force 101 Squadron, formed as a bomber squadron in 1917 during the first World War. The squadron is still active today, with a long and distinguished military history.
Shot down over Denmark on its return flight, about three hours from its home base, Lancaster LM479 never returned, one of two dozen Lancasters brought down that night. It was one of those coded “ABC” for Airborne Cigar. The ABC designation was use to identify such aircraft as being specially equipped with three receiving antenna and one transmitter to jam German aircraft radio messages. In order to use the ABC equipment, an eighth crew member, who could speak German, was added to the normal complement of seven. The special equipment operator was 20-year old P/O Cyril Cousin of the RAF, the youngest of the crew. The average age of a bomber crew was only 22.
Other British crew included Flight Engineer Sgt. George Gibson, and Air Gunners W/O William Owen and Sgt. Andrew Stewart. Canadians aboard the ill-fated “Lanc” included 21-year old pilot F/O Tom Foster, Wireless Operator and Air Gunner P/O Hubert Linn, and Air Bomber F/O Samuel Mackenzie.
The fourth Canadian crew member was the Navigator, twenty-three year old F/S Alfred Reid Chalmers, a native of Virden, Manitoba and an uncle I never had a chance to know. Alfred was the youngest of four boys born to his parents, James Henderson Chalmers and Eva West Chalmers. Of three girls also born to the same parents, none lived to be more than two years of age. Alfred’s father, James, was a lawyer in Virden who served as a town councilor for four years from 1917-20 and as mayor in 1922.
My father, John West Chalmers, oldest of the boys, carried the loss of his brother Alfred with him for the rest of his life. Shortly before he died in April 1998, Dad commented that, “When I die I will be the last person who knew my youngest brother when he was a little boy.” But he never had the opportunity to see his brother’s grave.
In August 2003 my wife, Linda, and I flew to Moscow to begin a two-week tour to six cities in eastern Europe. The trip provided a chance to stop in Denmark en route to visit the grave of my uncle and his fellow crew. On the return flight from Germany, sometime after midnight in the early hours of August 30, 1944 their Lancaster was shot down over western Denmark by a German night fighter near the town of Dejbjerg (pronounced Dy-bee-ah). None of the airmen survived.
In 1992, my father wrote to the town and received a response from Erik Engholm, who provided some of the details about the loss of the crew. They were buried by occupying German forces near the crash site, but this was not acceptable to the Danes. Two weeks later, on September 14, they defied German orders and held a proper funeral at the Dejbjerg church and reinterred the airmen in the cemetery beside the church.
In a show of support and remembrance, some 400-500 people came out to attend the funeral for the airmen, the largest one ever seen in the town. Many had learned about it in a BBC radio broadcast from London. Following the funeral, the church minister, Hans Pedersen, and two members of the parish council, Laurids Sandager and Jeppe Kongensholm, were arrested by German forces, then released after two or three days without further punishment.
A huge stone, some seven feet high, was moved from near the crash site to become a monument bearing the names of all airmen. On Christmas Day, 1945 the crew of the Lancaster were honoured again with the unveiling of that monument. About 1950, Great Britain provided four standard military headstones for the gravesite. Each stone bears two names, one of the RCAF and one of the RAF, plus the crests of the two air forces.
In this cemetery, if a plot is not used within 30 years, the headstones are removed and placed on display at the side of the cemetery and the plots are then re-used. In the case of the eight airmen, local people care for the grave in perpetuity. In a land far from home, eight brave airmen who made the supreme sacrifice for their countries sixty years ago rest in a land where they will never be forgotten.
Ross Wiens of Edmonton, Alberta, was a F/O pilot of RCAF 405 Pathfinder Squadron, also shot down over Denmark, two weeks before my uncle was brought down, but Ross’s story has a happier ending. The crew of seven all left a burning aircraft and six parachuted to safety. One crewman did not survive. Two were captured and taken prisoner, while Ross and three others were sheltered by Danes who smuggled them out to Sweden, from where they returned safely to their base in England.
Lyle James of Sarnia, Ontario was a 27-year old F/L pilot of a Special Ops Lancaster of RAF 101 Squadron. He was posted to the squadron in September 1944 and his crew took over the Lanc that had been piloted by former well-known Member of Parliament, Eric Neilsen, as that crew had just completed a tour of duty. Lyle says that he and his crew were posted to 101 Squadron the day after my uncle and crew were lost, possibly as a replacement for them. Incidentally, Eric’s younger brother, actor Leslie Neilsen, attended school in Edmonton and joined the RCAF near the end of the war serving for a year as an aerial gunner but the war ended before he went overseas.
Like my uncle’s aircraft, Lyle’s had a mixed RAF and RCAF crew, three Brits and five Canucks, including the Special Operator, code-named “Felix” for security reasons. Of German-Jewish background, Felix had fled Germany and until Lyle put a stop to it, dropped an eleven and a half pound practice bomb from the Lanc on each mission as a personal statement toward the Germans!
That practice is described by the late Ray Ollis in his book 101 Nights, published in London in 1957. Ollis, of the Royal Australian Air Force, also flew with 101 Squadron and after the war wrote his true historic fiction account based on exploits of that Special Ops squadron. The book is out of print, but copies can be found for sale on the internet.
Lyle James says that no one could enjoy bombing, but he has no bitter memories of the war, and says not a day goes by when he doesn’t have at least one flashback to his days with 101 Squadron. He says that the base at Ludford Magna, so the story goes, was put up in a farmer’s field in 30 days, and not a single building was permanent, with Quonset huts used for the living quarters.
Lyle also has great respect for the mighty Lancaster, and recounts that, “I’ve flown it in corkscrews with enemy aircraft on my tail when you could be dead in seconds, which is a great incentive to get away from an enemy fighter! At times like that, the Lanc flew like a Spitfire. In a corkscrew it could beat any German fighter. When the gunners gave me the command, “Corkscrew left, go!” we would make a 30-degree dive to port and reach speeds up to 400 miles per hour, eventually pulling out at about 125, close to stalling speed of 110, and fighters would overshoot us.” On one hair-raising night that left Lyle James’ legs shaking from their work on the rudder pedals, his gunners shot down two German fighters in the space of three or four minutes.
But Lyle first came under fire from shotgun blasts by humorless duck hunters when he and his instructor made a low pass over them and their decoys on a Canadian lake while flying a Tiger Moth in his early pilot training at Windsor, Ontario. That account of an early adventure appears as “Flak Over The River Canard,” at http://www.lancastermuseum.ca/s,canard.html on the internet.
Ten times F/L James brought back his aircraft damaged, but none of the crew was ever killed or injured. He, his navigator and bomb aimer were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. “I’ve always said that the crew got the DFC, but they let me wear it,” he says, and adds, “Of all the aircraft I have flown, I never had an engine failure, and for that the ground crew deserves the credit.” It was said by some that his Lanc should have been called M for Magnetic because it attracted so much flack!
My uncle, F/S Alfred Chalmers had enlisted in February 1941 and at the time of his death had served three and a half years. His brothers Jack (my father) and Herb served in the RCAF in Canada during the war. Jack was a Navigator instructor in Edmonton and Herb was a Flight Engineer in Gander. The fourth brother, Fred, signed up with the air force radar unit and was asked not to enlist as he was a supervisor in what was considered an “essential function” in business, working with Canada Packers in Edmonton.
In the summer of 2003 I wrote to Erik Engholm of Dejbjerg, not knowing if he still lived there or if my letter would reach him. He is still a resident of the small town of some 200 people and responded by e-mail promptly after receiving my letter, saying he and his wife, Jette, would be pleased to take us to the cemetery.
Immediately after arriving in Copenhagen my wife and I took a train from the airport across Denmark to Tarm, a town that offered accommodation not available in Dejbjerg. We had only a short one-block walk from the train station to the Bechs Hotel, where a message was waiting for me to call Erik. But first, a one-hour nap after some 26 hours of travel was needed! Then, less than half an hour after I called Erik, he and Jette arrived to take us for the drive.
Seeing the grave of my young uncle and his fellow airmen was an emotional and yet fulfilling experience. I expect I felt some of thoughts experienced by war veterans when they attend reunions at battle sites in Europe and visit military cemeteries holding their fallen comrades. At last I was able to stand at the grave on foreign soil, facing the monument and salute the military headstones to express respect and gratitude personally of my father and myself, and on behalf of the Chalmers family.
I could not help but feel that perhaps there was even a little bit of destiny in this, as it was August 29, and I was there on the 59th anniversary of the eve of the last flight, the last mission that these eight airmen would ever make. Their last target, Stettin, Germany, became part of Poland shortly after the war with the revision of boundaries, and is known today as the city of Szczecin.
Today, the skies over Denmark are peaceful. There are no squadrons of hundreds of aircraft making low passes over the land towards targets in Germany. Throughout western Denmark where the men are buried, on tall white columns, wind turbines with giant three-bladed vanes like huge propellers face westward toward the winds off the North Sea. The turbines, shaped like the engine nacelles of Lancaster bombers, are not weapons of war but instruments of peace, used to generate some 20% of Denmark’s electrical power.
The townspeople of Dejbjerg have been caring for the grave of the crew of Lancaster LM479 since giving the airmen a dignified funeral and burying them in the local church cemetery in 1944.
It is now nearly 60 years since local townspeople buried the crew of Lancaster LM479 and have been tending their grave ever since. The airplane’s base at Ludford Magna, sometimes referred to as “Mudford Magna” due to its muddy runways, closed in 1963. RAF Squadron 101 survived the war, even though it suffered the highest number of casualties of any squadron, and Bomber Command itself suffered huge losses. After being equipped with various aircraft, today the squadron is based at Brize Norton and flies Vickers VC-10s in air-to-air refueling.
Of 7,377 Lancaster bombers built during World War II, only 26 remain and of those, only two are in flying condition. One is in Canada at the Canadian War Plane Heritage Museum at the Hamilton International Airport. The other is in England. A restored Lanc in Alberta, although not flying, is at the Nanton Lancaster Society Air Museum. There are plans to fire up one its engines in 2005, Alberta’s centennial year.
The average number of missions flown by a Lancaster was 21, and LM479 had logged only 256 hours by the time it was brought down. The Lancasters have flown into history, but the men who flew them, like the aircraft, are not forgotten. Far from home the names of four RAF and four RCAF servicemen of Lancaster LM479 will always be remembered in the cemetery of a small town in Denmark.
My father, who was an accomplished writer, historian and scholar, remembered his youngest brother in thoughts and poetry. In the spring of 2003, I edited and published a book of 60 of my father’s poems, spanning six decades of his writing. The book is called Silk Trains and Other Poems. Proceeds from sales of that book will be donated to the cemetery in Denmark towards the maintenance of the gravesite of Alfred Chalmers and his fellow airmen, along with donations from family members.
Copies of Silk Trains and Other Poems may be obtained for $8.00 each, including postage (personal cheques accepted) by ordering from John J. Chalmers at 442 Reeves Crest, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6R 2A3. Overseas orders are $9.00 each, including postage. Any recollections of those who remember Alfred Chalmers, or any of the Chalmers family, are also welcome. Contact may also be made by e-mail to johnchalmers@shaw.ca to order books or to send information.
Those who have lost friends or
family members in the war can find information at the internet web site of the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. That site at http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/search.aspx lists 1.7 million men and women who died in two world
wars, as well as 67,000 civilians who died as a result of enemy action in World
War II.
The
internet abounds with military historical information. For example, one site is
http://www.lancaster-archive.com/homeindex.htm developed by Larry Wright of Calgary and is devoted to the
Lancaster. Len Smith of England maintains a web site dedicated to reuniting old
RAF comrades and finding information about them: F/S Chalmers is listed there
at http://www.worldwar2exraf.co.uk/Aircrewnoticeboard6.html. A link at the bottom
will take you to the home page of the site.
A must-see
site is http://www.lancaster-archive.com/Garbett.html which provides a first-hand account by Flight Engineer
Bill Garbett. He recounts in detail the eight-hour return flight for a
Lancaster bombing run from Ludford Magna to Stettin, the same base and target for
Alfred Chalmers and crew. Check also the site and links of the Nanton Lancaster
Society and Air Museum at http://www.lancastermuseum.ca/. At that site be
sure to click on the link to Bomber Command. There are many links worth
exploring at the Nanton museum site. Scroll down, click on the links and enjoy
your visit. See also the site at http://www.lancasterfm159.freeservers.com/index.html, maintained by Canadian
Lancaster historian Peter Whitfield, which in turn provides more links.
From a
computer at home, one can explore the worldwide riches of the internet and
reach back into history. For anyone seeking historical information or hoping to
locate former comrades, the ‘net is an unmatched resource that has been
embraced by military historians, organizations and individuals seeking and
sharing information, and learning about those who gave their lives in the
service of their country.
Author note: John J. Chalmers is an Edmonton writer, grateful for the
assistance of those who have helped in providing details used in this article.
John’s own air force service in the 1950s and 1960s consisted of one year in
Air Cadets with 12 Squadron in Edmonton, two years as an airman with RCAF 418
Reserve Squadron in Edmonton, and four years with the University of Alberta
RCAF squadron. Upon graduation, he received the rank of Flying Officer.
Following are two poems by Jack
Chalmers from the book, Silk Trains and Other Poems. “Eyes Wet With
Tears” was written by Jack in memory of his brother Alfred. “Remembrance Day”
was written as a poem for veterans of wars.
