The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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22400 Douglas Lawrence. Royal Air Force 426 Squadron My grandfather, Douglas Lawrence served with the RAF during the second world war. On the 6th of January 1945 his Halifax bomber (Z5-N) was shot down over Belgium on a mission to Hanau. After some research we have found the approximate location of the crash site is some 2km s from the town of Hargimont.On the night of his final mission there were 8 crew on board, however he was the only survivor. He managed to parachute to safety before watching his plane crash to the ground. When he landed he remembers being in a large open area covered in snow with a few large rocky outcrops. As it was he had landed around 10 miles from the Battle of the Bulge behind enemy lines. After the crash he headed east until he came to a straight road that had a large bend at one end with a 2 story house on one side. As he walked around the bend he walked straight into a German guard and became a POW. We are looking for any information that could help us find the exact location of his plane crash site. From the information we have 4 of the crew were first buried about a quarter of a mile from the crash site on top of a hill however the 7 dead now rest at Hotton war Memorial. My grandfather was with Squadron 462 (we believe he was part of bomber group 100 at the time of his mission) flying from Foulsham. My grandfather has no photographs of his crew or the crash site. If you could help in any way please contact me. Aaron Lawrence Add to this record.  Related Content: RAF Foulsham No. 426 (Thunderbird) Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.