This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Site Home
WW2 Home
Add Stories
WW2 Search
Library
Help & FAQs
WW2 Features
Airfields
Allied Army
Allied Air Forces
Allied Navy
Axis Forces
Home Front
Battles
Prisoners of War
Allied Ships
Women at War
Those Who Served
Day-by-Day
Library
The Great War
Submissions
Add Stories
Time Capsule
TWMP on Facebook
Childrens Bookshop
FAQ's
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
Contact us
News
Bookshop
About
240315F/O. Robert George Sharland DFC.
Royal Air Force 156 Squadron
from:Thursley, Surrey
(d.28th April 1944)
In 1944, seven young airmen took off in a Lancaster bomber from an RAF airfield in the East of England. Their target was Friedrichshafen, in the far south of Germany. It was about as far as a Lancaster could fly; a journey of 8 hours there and back before it would run out of fuel. Their mission was to bomb factories where inmates from Dachau concentration camp were forced to work in an underground bunker,making parts for tanks and V2 rockets. It was part of the RAFs mission to destroy the Nazis industrial capacity, end the war and ultimately deliver Europe, from the tyranny of the Third Reich.On board were Kenneth Franklin, a 21-year-old shepherd from Napier New Zealand; John Dodds, 28 from Australia; and from England, Cecil Eaton the commanding officer of the squadron and a comparatively old man at 32; Leslie Glasspool, the Squadron Leader, aged 25, Philip Wadsworth aged 22, who had just had a baby son; Colin Kidd, aged 30; and my uncle Robert Sharland (Flight Gunnery Leader), aged 21, who had been married for 23 days.
After 4 hours of flying, their plane was hit by a Luftwaffe nightfighter over Neuhausen. The plane crashed to the ground and exploded with the loss of all seven men. They are now buried in Durnbach Military Cemetery. RIP my Uncle Bob and comrades.
Robert George Sharland's wedding to Beryl Jones
Robert George Sharland's gravestone at Durnbach Cemetery
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
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.
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:
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.