Personnel Index - Detail
Sgt Ron Eeles flew 16 operations as a rear gunner with P/O G E Ball and one (to Berlin) as the mid-upper with P/O Meggeson before his Lancaster was attacked and Ron was made a PoW.
3/4 May, 1944: MAILLY-LE-CAMP:
The target, a German military camp which housed the 21st Panzer Division, lay close to the northern French village of Mailly. The force consisted of 346 Lancasters from 1 and 5 Groups plus 16 Pathfinder Mosquitoes. W/Cmdr Cheshire led the low-level marking of the target, which went well, but when W/Cmdr Deane the Main Force Controller ordered the force to come in and bomb, his VHF transmissions were drowned out by a wrongly tuned American Forces wireless broadcast.
The delay was fatal; it enabled the German nightfighters to roam at will amongst the orbiting Lancasters resulting in a dreadful loss of men and machines.
Eventually, 42 Lancasters fell in the battle which ensued around the markers and on the bombers’ return route.
Posted out a week after his 91st birthday.
See Mailly le Camp in the Documents section for more details