The Project: The R. D. Harris Crew
The Harris Crew From left to right: Hicks, Ditson, Harris, Smith, Yemen, Kelleher, Nicol "The fighters are our salvation but the bombers alone provide the means of victory" Winston Churchill, September 1940 I have been interested in my Great Uncle Doug Hicks’ stories published online through the Ex-Air Gunners Association for many years, but I was motivated to finally get more details about Doug’s experience because of an interest my now 10-year-old son has taken in World War II. This project has been a work in progress for several years. What started out as a modest bit of research to answer a few questions about Doug, turned out to be far more complicated than I had ever expected. It quickly became obvious I would learn very little about Doug’s experience without finding out more about 550 Squadron and all of Flying Officer Robert Harris’ Lancaster crew. The crew was comprised of five Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) me
