Lancaster at War 3, mystery crew page 62

I hope that neither the publishers, nor the authors Mike Garbett and Brian Goulding will object to me reproducing a photo from their wonderful collection 'Lancaster at War 3'. Page 62 has two photographs – one depicting Guy Gibson's most famous dog, the other – an unknown crew from RAF Kelstern with their puppy mascot.

I have it on very good authority that the 625 Squadron crew is that of W/O Ron Lake. Geoff Yates, B/A in Jim Ives's, and for the rest of his first tour, Donald Blackmore's crew shared a hut with them. Geoff struck up a rapport with Lake's B/A 'Harpo' Greene and flew in his stead on a couple of occasions.

Ex P/O Yates (then a F/Sgt) remembered Ron Lake as a steady, cool headed pilot. W/O Lake went on to complete his tour of operations at Kelstern and survived the war.

Unfortunately I never pinned down who was who in the photo and sadly Geoff is no longer with us to identify them.

Lake's regular crew form his early days on the squadron seems to have been:-

Sgt R C Lake

Sgt L V Huntingdon (f/e)

Sgt H Greene (b/a)

F/Sgt W H Maver (nav)

Sgt W W Mills (w/op, a/g)

Sgt J Ramsay (a/g)

Sgt A R Masters (a/g)

Presumably one of them was behind the camera. Is there a glimpse of a crown above the figure on the left's chevron's, if so, and taking into account his dress, could this be navigator F/Sgt Maver? W/O Lake is next to him.

A/W/O Ronald Charles Lake was elevated to P/O status wef 5^th March 1944, the award of his DFC was gazetted on 19^th September 1944.

 

Unfortunately nothing is known about the dog.