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) members:
Mid-Upper Air Gunner Melvin “Tom” Ditson
(from Toronto)
Flying Officer Robert “Bob” Harris
(from Winnipeg)
Rear Air Gunner Douglas Hicks (from
Toronto)
Bomber Gordon “Nick” Nicol (from
Vancouver)
Navigator David Yemen (from Yorkton,
SK)
The
Canadians were joined by two Royal Air Force (RAF) members:
Wireless Operator Gerard Patrick
“Taffy” Kelleher (from Wales)
Flight Engineer Kenneth Smith (from
England)
On the crew’s’
first live operation, the position of Mid-Upper Air Gunner was filled by RAF
Sergeant William Towle. On the crew’s
second operation, this position was filled by RAF Sergeant Albert Colin. For both the crew’s third and seventh (which
would be their last) operation, the position of Mid-Upper Air Gunner was filled
by RAF Sergeant Eric Raymond Robinson.
Throughout
this process, I have been stymied by conflicting information requiring
extensive further research, surprised by the information that is readily available and flummoxed by
the information that is not readily available. RAF records
about crew members Kelleher and Smith, and stand-ins Colin, Robinson and Towle
are sparse. RAF records since 1939 are
held by the UK Ministry of Defence and are only available to the service
personnel themselves and their next of kin.
The lack of information is particularly
disappointing in the case of Robinson, who although not a full-fledged member
of the crew, stood in for Ditson on three of the crew’s live operations,
including the seventh and last where he lost his life.
The timing
for this project is coincidental but fortuitous… January 2020 will mark the 75th
anniversary of the crew being assigned to 550 Squadron. My aim for this blog is to introduce the crew and beginning January, follow the crew on a daily basis as they begin their live operations from the cold, snowy base at RAF North Killingholme.
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