Personnel Index - Detail
22/23 October, 1943; KASSEL:
Eight Pathfinder 'visual markers' found the centre of Kassel after the H2S 'blind' marker overshot the target. The consequences proved to be horrendous for this German city. The bombing, by nearly 570 was so concentrated that a firestorm was created, but not on the scale of the Hamburg storm in July.
Bomber Command paid heavily for their success with 24 Halifaxes and 18 Lancasters failing to return. Sadly two of the missing Lancasters were from 49 Squadron
One of the missing aircraft was JB413; it crashed near Wunsdorf, with five members of the crew surviving. Sadly their pilot, P/O Philip Taverner and the 20 year old Australian rear gunner, F/Sgt Edwin Parker, were both killed; they too have their graves in Hannover War Cemetery.
Claimed by Uffz.Wilhelm Bröckerhoff (2nd kill) of 3./NJG3. Interception near Minden, 55 km west of Hannover at 6.000 mts at 21.25hrs.
Note: Uffz Bröckerhoff attained 5 night victories. However, on the 23-24 of December 1943 he was killed in a crash at Haustenbeck, east Augustdorf near Detmold, cause unknown.
Lancaster JB413
P/O P.A. Taverner Pilot (Killed)
Sgt W. Kemp F/E (P.o.W.)
Sgt I. Spence NAV (P.o.W.)
Sgt R.H. Norman W/AG (P.o.W.)
Sgt N.C. Dunbabin A/G (P.o.W.)
Sgt R.K. Drinnan RCAF B/A (P.o.W.)
F/S E.E. Parker RAAF A/G (Killed)
Crew on their 3rd operation
F/S Parker is remembered on a memorial in William Farr School, Welton, Nr Lincoln.
In July 2014, Ed Norman (son of the W/Op) visited the Hannover War Cemetery to visit the pilot's grave.
The following is information recently received via the Guestbook from his family:
Robert Kerr Drinnan died during the evening of Friday, July 22, 2011. He was born on November 20, 1916 in Lake Valley, Saskatchewan and is survived by Elsie, his wife of 62 years.
Robert went to public school in Heward, Saskatchewan and upon graduation he took an accounting course at Balfour.
Robert enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force on January 8, 1942, graduating as an Air Bomber and was posted in Lincoln, England. During a bombing raid on October 22, 1943 his plane was shot down and he became a Prisoner of War.
When the war was over he came back home and obtained an accounting position with the provincial government. During a trip to Racine, Wisconsin to visit his brother, Robert met a lovely young woman named Elsie Christensen, whom he married September 3, 1948, after a long-distance romance.
The newlyweds came back to Regina and have called this place home since. When Robert was not working hard to make a living for his family, he enjoyed travelling to far away places like Cuba, Australia and Scotland and building a cottage with his wife at B-Say-Tah, a resort village in the rural municipality of North Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan.
"Posted out" 2011