Grevillers, Lancaster DS660

During our wanderings around the battlefields its not unusual to come across the graves of aircrew shot down during WW2, one such occasion was while visiting a predominantly WW1 cemetery at Grevillers, we quickly surmised it was a Lancaster Crew, but there were only six, there are seven in a Lancaster Crew, the missing man was the pilot. It turns out that the pilot F/O R B Larson of the RCAF survived the crash and was taken prisoner, its not known what condition he was in but it must of been some impact for him to be the only survivor from a crew of 7, the oldest of whom seems to have been just 28, the youngest 19.

Lancaster MkII DS660 of 115 Squadron was one of 374 aircraft on a raid to Aachen in Germany, it took off from East Wretham at 00.24am, it was shot down on the outskirts of Grevillers 3km WNW of Bapume on 14th July 1943 by a night fighter piloted by Hubert Rauh at 2.35am. 23 aircraft were lost on that raid, DS660 was one of two lancasters from 115 squadron lost that night, the other being DS690.

Pilot: F/O. Rod B. Larson R.C.A.F. Survived POW No: 1778 Stalag Luft Sagan and Belaria

Killed Fl/Eng: Sgt. Mervyn Jones 1653104 R.A.F.V.R. Age. 20.

Killed Nav: P/O. Chester Armstrong 138396 R.A.F.V.R. Age ?

Killed Air/Bmr: F/O. Frederick Leonard Yates 131977 R.A.F.V.R. Age 28.

Killed W/Op/Air/Gnr: Sgt. Peter Williams 1077619 R.A.F.V.R. Age 21.

Killed Air/Gnr: Sgt. Derick Murphy 1044231 R.A.F.V.R. Age ?

Killed Air/Gnr: Sgt. John Albert Thomas Newton 1601296 R.A.F.V.R. Age 19.