Personnel Index - Detail

Name
MANNING
First Names
Bernard Charles
Rank
Sgt
Service
RAF
Service Number
3000422
Crew Position
Air Gunner
Age
19
Date of Death
09/04/1945
Cemetery

 

Photographed by Malcolm Brooke
 

8/9 April, 1945; LUTZKENDORF:

1 Group Lancasters had attacked the Lutzkendorf refinery the previous night achieving moderate success. Just after 18.00hrs on Sunday evening, 231 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes from Lincolnshire's 5 Group, set out to finish the job. The raid itself was a total success with the refinery being rendered inactive.

The cost had been 6 Lancasters and their crews. A second aircraft from the squadron failed to return: F/O 'Polly' Perkins (RA531) and crew were brought down over Germany; there were no survivors. The crew now rest together in the Berlin War Cemetery; Sgt Bernard Manning the mid-upper gunner was only 19 years old and the rear gunner, F/Sgt Dennis Hull was just 18. Again perhaps 'fate' had been at work, for their skipper, F/O Robert Perkins, the son of a Lincolnshire farmer, had only recently confided to a fellow pilot, that he 'knew' he was not going to survive the war.
 

Lancaster RA531 (EA-S)
F/O R.G. Perkins Pilot (Killed)
Sgt H. Prust F/E (Killed)
F/S P.J. Warrington NAV (Killed)
F/S G.R. Wall W/AG (Killed)
Sgt B.C. Manning A/G (Killed)
F/S J.E. Wilkinson A/B (Killed)
F/S D.R. Hull A/G (Killed)

Crew on their 9th operation