208470 F/Sgt. David William McCray Royal Australian Air Force 50 Squadron. from:rnington, Queensland, Australia (d.17th Dec 1944) I have been researching F/Sgt McCray for my Australian relatives as they believe that his name may be spelt wrongly in the memorial books in Lincoln Cathedral which I will return to in a moment. My distant cousin, David McCray, was a member of 50 Sqd in 1944. He was Navigator on Lancaster LM676, VN-W. which took off from Skellingthorpe at 1615 hrs on the night of 17/18th December 1944.
The Crew was
- P/O R E Amey DFC (Pilot)
- Sgt F Livesey (Flight eng)
- F/Sgt D W McCray (Navigator)
- F/O D R Kennedy (Air Bomber)
- F/Sgt G W Lane DFM (Wireless opp air)
- Sgt M J Cook (Mid Upper Gunner)
- Sgt R Shackelton (Rear Gunner)
The RAAR records show that the Lancaster was detailed to bomb Munich. Nothing was heard from the aircraft after take off and it failed to return to base. It was later established that the aircraft crashed at 2200hrs on the 17th December 1944 at Freimann Barracks Munich. Five of the crew, including David, were killed in the crash and two P/O Amey and Sgt Livesey survived the crash and were POWs. The five who lost there lives are buried in the Durnbach War Cemetery 48 km south of Munich. P/O Amey was wounded and sadly died of his wounds in hospital on 31st December 1944.
Sgt Livesey stated in a report that the aircraft crashed near to the target and both he and P/O Amey were blown out by the explosion.
Now we come to the spelling bit. On a trip by John McCray (David's Brother) to the War Grave in Durnbach it was noted that David’s surname had been spelt wrongly as "Mcgray" this has now been rectified. John also attended the unveiling ceremony of the memorial in Skellingthorpe with his wife Eva and learned of the memorial books at Lincoln Cathedral but they were unable to go there to see. Now John is unable to travel and he has asked me to try to find out if David’s name has been spelt correctly in the memorial books. I would be very grateful if anyone could give me any info regarding F/Sgt David McCray or Sgt Livesey.
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