LEST WE FORGET
Flying Officer Donald Stephen LADE
Service No: 418130
Born: 20 October 1923, Location Unavailable
Enlisted in the RAAF: 25 April 1942 (at Melbourne VIC)
Unit: No. 44 Squadron (RAF), RAF Dunholme Lodge, Lincolnshire
Died: Air Operations: (No. 44 Squadron Lancaster aircraft PB535), North West Europe, 12 September 1944, Aged 20 Years
Buried: Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleve, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Percival Vincent Lade and Edith Muriel Pearl Lade, of Barnawartha, Victoria, Australia.
Roll of Honour: Barnawartha VIC
Remembered: Panel 125, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Lancaster PB535 took off from RAF Station Dunholme Lodge at 2044 hours on the night of 11 September 1944 to attack Darmstadt, Germany. Nothing was heard from the aircraft after take off and it did not return to base. It was later established that the aircraft crashed at 0130 hours on 12th September 1944 at Roxheim, a small town 6 kms south of Worms, Germany. All seven crew members were killed. Flying Officer Lade and Flying Officer Hourigan are buried in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Germany, and following post war investigations and enquiries, it was recorded in 1950 that the remaining crew members had no known grave.
The crew members of PB535 were:
Warrant Officer Terence Lansdowne Awcock (406988) (Navigator)
Sergeant Maurice Benjamin (1671182) (RAFVR) (Wireless Operator Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Henry John Conquest (429450) (Mid Upper Gunner)
Flying Officer Ivan Patrick Hourigan (410668) (Rear Gunner)
Flying Officer Donald Stephen Lade (418130) (Pilot)
Pilot Officer Joseph Archibald Wilson McCallum DFC (173828) (RAFVR) (Air Bomber)
Flight Sergeant Thomas Starkie (548376) (RAF) (Flight Engineer)
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, 166/24/537