Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, appertaining to Sergeant D. L. Smith, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who was lost over Berlin on his 9th sortie to the German capital, covering the period March 1942 to January 1944, with 22 operational entries and, poignantly, a pressed English rose, spine weak but otherwise in good condition £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Awards to the Men of Bomber Command 1939-45.

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Sergeant Dennis Leslie Smith, who was from Eltham, London, commenced training as a Wireless Operator in March 1942 and was posted to No. 12 Squadron, a Lancaster unit based at Wickenby, Lincolnshire, in August 1943. Completing sorties to Bochum, Hannover (twice) and Mannheim before the end of that month, there ensued a punishing schedule of further German targets for October, with two more trips to Hannover, in addition to strikes against Frankfurt, Hagen, Kassel, Leipzig, Munich and Stuttgart. But it was in the following month that Smith’s chances of survival were really reduced, Bomber Command commencing its famous winter 1943-44 campaign against Berlin, an onslaught that called upon the 21 year old Wireless Operator to participate in no less than four strikes against the enemy’s capital in little over a week - in one of these his aircraft was holed by flak in three places. Remarkably he survived four more sorties there in December, in addition to a return trip to Leipzig, but inevitably, on the night of 1-2 January 1944, on his ninth visit to the capital, he was posted missing.

As it transpired, Smith was the only fatality from his Lancaster’s crew: ‘His parachute failed to deploy fully after he had been hit by the tailplane when baling out and his body was found by the Germans in a forest clearing and identified by a captured crew member.’ His remains were re-interred in the Durnbach War Cemetery after the War. The other five who had baled out were taken P.O.W. and the skipper, Pilot Officer K. West, opted to stay with his aircraft and carry out a crash landing, a feat that was accomplished at Wingsbach, near Wiesbaden, wheels down!

Sold with a fascinating archive of research, including eye-witness statements.