RAF hero to be buried... 72 years af ter he was shot down by a German air ace
WHEN RAF pilot officer George Smith was shot down i n his Lancaster bomber during a mission to Frankfurt in 1943, his family longed for the chance to honour the fallen war hero.
But Mr Smith’s remains were not discovered until 2010 and his sister went to her grave without having the chance to say goodbye.
Now, 72 years later, Mr Smith’s niece is flying to Germany to bid her final farewell to the uncle she never met.
Evelyn Craig, 69, was born three years after her he went missing but will be paying her respects on Wednesday at a special ceremony organised by the Ministry of Defence and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Mrs Craig, from Selkirk, said her mother, Rose, had never spoken to her about the
‘She bore his death with a sore heart’
war but it was clear she had been very close to her brother.
She added: ‘When we were told George’s remains had been found all I could think of was my mum and how very upset she was when we went to Remembrance Day services.
‘She never had any information about his disappearance and bore it with a sore heart.’
Mrs Craig’s cousin, Linda Ralph, later decided to research the family history and discovered a wealth of information about her uncle, who was 25 years old when he died and had been married for only six months.
Mr Smith, one of four brothers from a fishing family in Buckie, Banffshire, was a flight engineer in the RAF. He was commissioned as an officer in October 1943 and the crew joined 97 (Pathfinder) Squadron in early November, when the Battle of Berlin was at its height.
The Lancaster JB221 took off on its first operational flight with the squadron at 12.30am on November 26.
The crew were shot down near Brandau, south of Frankfurt, by Luftwaffe night-fighter ace Eckart-Wilhelm von Bonin, who it is claimed brought down at least 37 enemy aircraft. Although none survived, some crew members’ bodies were recovered immediately after the crash.
Four, including Mr Smith, were never found and were commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey.
Mrs Ralph had researched the crash and knew the bomber had come down around one mile east of the village of Brandau.
In February 2010 she received a call to say the crash site had been found thanks to a student, Felix Klingenbeck, who learned of the crash from an elderly local man who had witnessed the night’s events.
Mr Smith will be laid to rest at the Durnbach War Cemetery in southern Germany shortly after a memorial service f or another Lancaster crew.
The services will be conducted by RAF chaplain Squadron Leader the Rev Colin O’Dell. Attending the service will be Mr Smith’s relatives and representatives from embassies, air f orces and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Mrs Craig will be there with her husband, Jim, as well as Mrs Ralph and her family.
Mrs Craig said: ‘I am surprised to learn what the Ministry of Defence is doing to help the families of servicemen who died all these years ago.
‘It is so respectful – contacting the families, arranging the service to be conducted by an RAF padre, with airmen carrying the coffin and organising the reception – it is quite amazing.’
Mr Smith was the only one of his brothers not to survive the war.
His older brother, Alec, was attached to the Gurkhas. He lost a leg and was awarded the Military Cross. Another brother, Jim, was in the Gordon Highlanders and twice escaped f rom prisoner of war camps and became a hero of the French Resistance.