LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Maxwell DUNBAR
Service No: 424162
Born: Dubbo NSW, 4 October 1922
Enlisted in the RAAF: 15 august 1942
Unit: No. 630 Squadron (RAF), RAF Station East Kirkby
Died: Air Operations: (No. 630 Squadron Lancaster aircraft ME717), Corsica, 25 April 1944, Aged 21 Years
Buried: Biguglia War Cemetery, Haute-Corse, France
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Edward Auburn Dunbar and Dolby Dunbar; husband of Joan Elizabeth Dunbar, of Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Dubbo NSW
Remembered: Panel 121, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Remembered: Dubbo Memorial Drive and Rose Garden, Dubbo NSW
At 2051 hours on the night of the 24 April 1944, Lancaster ME717 took off from Kirkby detailed to bomb Munich, Germany. The aircraft was badly shot about by a night fighter whose fire wrecked the port inner engine. Subsequently the aircraft continued south to allied-held territory and was crash landed at 0525 hours at the Borgo airfield, Corsica. However the aircraft’s tail plane hit a parked aircraft killing Flight Sergeant Dunbar. The rest of the crew members were uninjured.
The crew members of ME717 were:
Flight Sergeant Maxwell Dunbar (424162) (Rear Gunner)
Flying Officer I Gow (128973) (RAFVR) (Navigator)
Flight Sergeant J Jones (523583) (RAF) (Mid Upper Gunner)
Sergeant S Jones (1685515) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer)
Flight Sergeant Douglas Stewart Morgan (413786) (Air Bomber) Discharged from the RAAF: 26 March 1947
Pilot Officer Lionel Norman Rackley DFC (414828) (Pilot) Discharged from the RAAF: 2 September 1945
Sergeant J Watts (1561330) (RAFVR) (Wireless Air Gunner)
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 Veterans’ Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/10/224
Register of War Memorials in New South Wales On-Line