On the night of 30th
January 1944 P/O Norman Joseph Lyford RAAF, twenty-two year old pilot
of 44 Squadron Lancaster ND514, was last seen by his crew-mates
holding the aircraft steady to enable them to bale-out after being
attacked by a night-fighter about 15 minutes short of Berlin.
In the early hours of the
previous morning (29th January) accredited photographers
had visited RAF Dunholme Lodge to record F/Lt A Moore and 'the crew
of “C – Charlie” on their return from their ninth time to “The
Big City”.....Berlin, to complete their tour of operations in
Lancaster ND514. The photograph appeared on the front page of the
London Sunday Graphic newspaper on 30th January.
Also appearing in that
issue of the Sunday Graphic was a photograph of two young men
standing beside the aircraft in which they had thankfully returned
from a sortie to the German capital the previous night/ earlier that
morning, having landed at 8.26hrs. P/O Norman Lyford RAAF, his B/A
F/Sgt Owen and their crew-mates were fortunate to have survived a
very near miss from a flak shell which caused significant damage to
LM434 – serial-F.
Squadron records noted -
'Damage to aircraft caused by heavy flak. Port wing tip shot off.
Port fin damaged. Holes in starboard mainplane, port mainplane,
port inner engine cowling and starboard elevator trimming tab.'
P/O Lyford looks as
though he'd prefer to be anywhere other than in the limelight.
Having arrived back at Dunholme Lodge around breakfast time crews
were thankful for a stand-down that (Saturday) evening.
Norman Lyford's account -
'We were rather badly shot up by flak over the target, but this
did not affect the mission.'
LM434 was u/s for the
next operation on Sunday evening, 30th January and the
Lyford crew took ND514, no longer required by F/Lt Bert Wright and
crew.
About fifty miles from
the 'Big City' on the way in, ND514 sustained an attack from a
night-fighter causing such damage that P/O Lyford ordered his crew to
bale-out. None of the crew members
were injured during the attack.
The
standard tactic for Luftwaffe night-fighters with conventional,
forward-firing cannon and machine-guns was to attack a bomber from
below and behind -‘von
unten hinten’,
firing at the fuselage to disable the gunners and other crew members.
That some night-fighters were
equipped with ‘schrage-muzik’
upward-firing cannon was still unknown at this time. Their method of
attack was from underneath, aiming to hit a Lancaster’s
wing tanks between the two starboard engines ‘and
pull away immediately without firing at the crew at all’.
So
it is possible that ND514 suffered a 'schrage-muzik'
attack from below into the wing area housing the fuel tanks, causing
a wing and engine fire.
Lyford held the aircraft
under control long enough for his six crew-mates to safely exit the
Lancaster.
Wreckage of ND514 came
down at Geisenhorst, a tiny rural hamlet,
SW of the settlement of Dreetz just south of the Rhinkanal-in-Dreetz,
some 44 miles from Berlin, about 12 minutes Lancaster flying
time. Norman Lyford's remains were recovered and buried in the
parish cemetery at Dreetz on 4th February.
Local witnesses
considered the wreckage to have been that of a twin-engine aircraft,
the RAF Investigation Unit's later interpretation - possibly a
Mosquito. Were only two engines and scattered wreckage found in the
vicinity of Geisenhorst? A likely explanation – a catastrophic
explosion of fuel in the wing-tanks, and the bomb-load. Official
findings suggested that the nature of the loss of ND514 was such that
P/O Lyford's death would have been instantaneous.
Whatever happened,
gallant Norman Lyford had again looked after his crew, ordering them
out and staying at his post until they had made their escape from the
stricken aircraft. All six of his crew-mates survived to become
Prisoners of War.
F/E Sgt. A. Semple
Nav Sgt.
J.R. Tijou
B/A F/Sgt.
G. Owen
W/op
A/g Sgt. R.G. Keen
M/u Sgt.
H. Marrs
R/g Sgt.
J.A. Wainwright
Norman Joseph Lyford,
from Pymble, Sydney, New South Wales
