Lest We Forget

"Deeply regret to inform you that your son Sgt. Donald Arthur Brown lost his life on 29th January, 1943 as a result of an aircraft accident. Please accept my profound sympathy. O.C. 9 Squadron".

This was the sort of telegram that every family, who had someone away fighting, dreaded receiving. Barely had the shock subsided when official letters followed, giving further details.

The aircraft - a Lancaster bomber - came down in a field near Boston in Lincolnshire during a practice flight. Only the body of the rear gunner - Sgt. Wishart -was recoverable before the aircraft sank beneath the ground with the bodies of the other crew members inside:- Flt Lt. Lind, pilot; Pt Off. Cocks, bomb aimer; Sgt. Doran F/Egr; Sgt. Henry, W/Operator; and Sgt Donald Brown, mid upper gunner.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown made contact, via the Air Ministry, with relatives of the other crew members and also visited the crash site. Sibsey Northlands near Boston is a lonely isolated hamlet where the prairie like fields of Lincolnshire, which have long since lost their hedgerows, run into the vast flat fenlands around the Wash. The crash site was in the middle of a field some four hundred yards from a narrow road.

Eyewitness accounts of the incident differed somewhat from the official version of events. The crew had already flown many operational sorties over occupied Europe, including the German capital Berlin, and had only just been posted to 9 Squadron in 5 Group Bomber Command. 5 Group was a 'tails-up' Group throughout the war, and 9 Squadron one of its most experienced squadrons, that was later used for special tasks, along with 617 Squadron, which was formed some nine weeks after Donald Brown lost his life. The crew's Lancaster was, according to the eyewitnesses, on a fighter affiliation exercise, and the fighter stayed on the bomber's tail too long, forcing it beyond the point of recovery. The crash caused a twenty feet deep crater, with only the rear of the plane still visible. By the next day this too had disappeared. Efforts to recover either the aircraft or the bodies were unsuccessful and the crater was filled in.

The families of the deceased decided to have a memorial erected on the exact spot of the crash, a Celtic wheel cross of Cornish granite surrounded by ten granite posts. Donald Brown's name is to be found on this memorial, and also on the RAF Memorial at Runnymede as well as on Langford's War Memorial.

The crash is remembered every January by family and local people, as well as every Remembrance Sunday. 9 Squadron also remember. Last January 29th, the 50th anniversary of the accident, one of the current Squadron's Tornado bombers overflew the memorial. Think of all those who died in two world wars and other conflicts. When Donald Brown's name is read out next Remembrance Sunday, remember, it is not just a name on a memorial. For our tomorrow, he gave his today.

The War Memorial in Sibsey Northlands