Personnel Index - Detail

Name
PRUSHER
First Names
Derek Francis
Rank
Sgt
Service
RAF
Service Number
1867428
Crew Position
Air Gunner
Age
18
Date of Death
03/01/1944
Cemetery

 

Photographed by Malcolm Brooke
Part of the panel at Runnymede

The Runnymede image was created by artist Paul Reid using photographs taken by Jo Cockburn and Malcolm Brooke

Possibly buried at: Retzow Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Photographed by Malcolm Brooke

Is this the final resting place of Sgt Prusher?

Photo from the effects of Philip Otley Camm reproduced courtesy of Barbara [Betty] Lister.
 

F/Lt Palmer & Crew
 

Left to right......Unknown, F/O Ronald Stobo, F/O George Thomas Young, F/L Johnny Palmer, Unknown, Sgt Philip Otley Camm.

(Possibly Sgt Prusher is one of the two unknowns)

2/3 January, 1944; BERLIN:

Every available person on the station gave a hand in clearing the snow ready for the evening's operation. Take-offs were able to begin 15 minutes before midnight with Fiskerton managing to get 12 aircraft airborne from the 13 detailed.

Just 311 bombers struggled to reach a cloud-covered Berlin where the bombing was spread, with no concentrated fires developing. The German controllers had realised the bombers target in advance and instructed the night-fighters accordingly; most of the 27 Lancasters lost, fell in the Berlin area.

The reason for the total loss of F/Lt Johnny Palmer (JB727 EA-S) and crew has never been established; the pilot, who had recently celebrated his 21st birthday is remembered along with his crew on the Runnymede Memorial; their mid-upper gunner, Derek Prusher, was just 18 years old.

It is just possible that F/Lt Palmer’s S - Sugar collided with another Fiskerton Lancaster that night (JA231 - F/O JEM Young) as it would have been in the same wave. When JA231 made its final right turn towards Berlin it may have flown into the path of JB727.

Lancaster JB727 (EA-S)
F/L C.J.E. Palmer Pilot (Killed)
Sgt P.O. Camm F/E (Killed)
F/O G.T. Young NAV (Killed)
Sgt H. Conrad W/OP (Killed)
Sgt D.D.R. Dallaway A/G (Killed)
F/O R. Stobo A/B (Killed)
Sgt D.F. Prusher A/G (Killed)

Crew on their 11th operation

The Documents section contains....The story of Sgt Philip Camm which gives additional details of this crash and the family's correspondence with the RAF.



Information has recently (2021) come to light that states there was a partial recovery of JB727 in 1999.
Click the image above or this link for more details.