Personnel Index - Detail

Name
FINLAYSON
First Names
John Kennedy
Rank
Sgt
Service
RAF
Service Number
1314004
Crew Position
Flight Engineer
Posting In
Posted 11/43
Cemetery

 

Flew two operations in November 1943........following a crash, see below, he was transferred to 153Sqn.

Sgt Finlayson was killed on 17th March 1945 whilst with 153 Squadron.

He is buried at the Durnbach War Cemetery in southern Germany.

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Photographed by the McEneaney family.



Image via Ashley Hales.

 

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Extract is from Bill Chorley's Bomber Command Losses

Earlier he was F/E on JB229 when it crashed on the beach at Chapel St Leonards in November 1943.

SEASIDE SORTIE:

F/O Don Turner (JB229) and crew were returning over the North Sea on track, with 1,000ft showing on the altimeter. The conditions were misty, so the pilot decided to let down a little in order to determine landfall. Just as he did the Lancaster suddenly struck the sea and then moments later it was careering up a beach towards sand dunes. A startled but intact crew clambered out into waist high freezing sea water! S-Sugar had in fact come ashore at Chapel-St-Leonards on the Lincolnshire coast 5 miles north of Skegness. The freezing cold crew found much to their displeasure, that the Lincolnshire seaside, whilst perhaps popular with pre-war summertime holiday makers, was not so alluring in the middle of November 1943. The crew spent the next few days recovering in Scampton sick bay.


Pilot........F/O D G Turner
F/E..........Sgt J Finlayson
Nav........ Sgt J N Hughes
B/A.........F/O W Pearce
WOp......Sgt L Nightingale
MUG......Sgt T D Horne
RG.........Sgt J N E Bennett

Further details of the incident are recored in May Hill's WW2 diary (opens in a new window).