LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Russell ALLEN
Service No: 5182
Born: Footscray VIC, 21 October 1917
Enlisted in the RAAF: 13 November 1939
Unit: No. 460 Squadron, RAF Station Binbrook, Lincolnshire
Died: Air Operations: (No. 460 Squadron Lancaster aircraft LM525), Germany, 23 April 1944, Aged 26 Years
Buried: Sythen Civil Cemetery
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Walter Aquilla Allen and Elsie Mabel Allen; husband of Jean Alma Allen, of West Brunswick, Victoria. Australia
Roll of Honour: Mentone VIC
Remembered: Special Memorial No. 8 (Sythen Civil Cemetery) Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleve, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Remembered: Panel 106, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Date: 22-23 April 1944
Target: Dusseldorf
Total Force: Dispatched – 596, Attacking – 567
RAAF Force: No. 460 Dispatched – 19, Attacking – 18; No. 466* Dispatched – 15, Attacking – Unavailable
Tons of Bombs Dropped: 2,150
Total Aircraft Lost: 30
RAAF Aircraft Lost: No. 460 – 1; No. 466 – 1
* Details of No. 466 Squadron contribution to the Dusseldorf raid have been omitted from the Official History and have been added to the table from Squadron records.
Forty per cent of the tonnage of bombs carried to Cologne (on 20-21 April) had been incendiaries, but this ratio was increased to 57 per cent two nights later when the target was Dusseldorf. The RAAF Lancaster and Halifax crews praised the clear pathfinder marking and vividly described a mass of fires raging over two or three square miles; later photographic reconnaissance of Dusseldorf showed that 28 industrial concerns had received damage. Of particular importance was a high level of destruction at two branches of the Rheinmetall steel combine, then the most important armaments works in Germany, It was, however, far from an easy operation and German fighters penetrated the bomber stream during the outward journey shooting down one aircraft from each RAAF squadron, and damaging the Lancaster flown by Squadron Leader Willis (1) of No. 460 so badly that he dropped his bombs on Krefeld and prudently struggled home with one engine unserviceable, one fuel tank punctured, the mid-upper turret and hydraulic controls out of action, and his bomb doors almost shot away. Several more aircraft were damaged by accurate ground-fire, and Squadron Leader Connolly (2) of No. 466 suffered a large hole torn in his port rudder-fin by a bomb released from another aircraft.
(1) Squadron Leader Anthony Vincent Willis DFC DFM (402940) Discharged from the RAAF: 31 July 1946
(2) Squadron Leader Hamilton Wellesley Connolly DFC & Bar (402492) Discharged from the RAAF: 9 August 1945
Extracts from Herington, J. (John) (406545) Air War Over Europe 1944-1945, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1963 – Pages 46-7
Lancaster LM525 took off from RAF Binbrook at 2254 hours on 22 April 1944 to bomb Dusseldorf, Germany. The bomb load was 1 x 4000 lb (pound) (1,800 kg) bomb, 108 x 30 lb (14 kg) and 1170 x 4 lb (2 kg) incendiaries. Nothing was heard from the aircraft after take off and it did not return to base. Post war it was established that the aircraft was shot down by a night fighter from 21,000 feet and crashed at Sythen, 4 kms north east of Haltern. Flight Sergeant Allen was killed and the remaining six crew members became Prisoners of War.
The crew members of LM525 were:
Flight Sergeant Russell Allen (5182) (Pilot)
Sergeant J G Bodd (913840) (RAFVR) (Rear Gunner) PoW
Flight Sergeant K P Collett (422179) (RNZAF) (Bomb Aimer) PoW
Sergeant D Lord (186589) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer) PoW
Flying Officer William Maitland Francis Orr (415384) (Navigator) PoW, Discharged from the RAAF: 30 January 1946
Sergeant J S Stewart (R/178699) (RCAF) (Mid Upper Gunner) PoW
Sergeant S Mc Swinton (1118716) (RAFVR) (Wireless Operator Air) PoW
In a later statement Flying Officer Orr said “on the night of 22/23rd April our aircraft was attacked by a night fighter near Dusseldorf. The Captain remained in the aircraft and tried to land’ Flight Sergeant Collett another crew member at Stalag Luft 111 stated ‘he identified the body of Allen and he is buried in Haltern, Germany.
In a letter to relatives in 1951 they were advised ‘that Flight Sergeant Allen was buried in Sythen
Civil Cemetery at Haltern. At the end of hostilities the Americans removed the body for reburial most likely thinking it was American, but despite prolonged investigation it had not been possible to find the place of reburial’. Flight Sergeant Allen’s name is commemorated by a Kipling Memorial in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery at Cleves, Germany.
No. 463 Squadron lost Lancaster LL892 (Flying Officer Charles Copley Schomberg (413798) (Pilot)) during the raid on Brunswick on 22 April 1944.
No. 466 Squadron lost Halifax HX337 (Flying Officer William Noel Thomsett Russell DFC (410122) (Pilot)) in the raid on Dusseldorf on 22 April 1944.
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veteran’s Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/3/204
Bibliography:
Firkins, P. C. (Peter Charles) (441386) Strike and Return, Westward Ho Publishing City Beach WA, 1985