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 75^th 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.