218563 Sgt. Harry Rochead Williamson Royal Air Force 83 Sqn. Wyton from:14 Greenbank Cres, Edinburgh (d.13th May 1943) The War Memorial in the grounds of my old school in Edinburgh carries the names of about 200 former pupils who gave their lives in the Second World War, 84 of whom served in the RAF. About 50 of those flew with Bomber Command, including my late Uncle Harry. (Sgt. H R Williamson, RAFVR – Service No. 1365974).
Harry Williamson left school in July 1939 having decided to take up farming and he started work as a ‘mud student’ on a farm at the upper end of the Lauderdale valley, Berwickshire. Thereafter he intended to enter the College of Agriculture in Edinburgh.
Harry’s elder brother, Walter, had joined the RNVR before the war but on the outbreak of hostilities he was quickly called up. Although agriculture was a reserved occupation, Harry decided to join the RAFVR and signed up on 28 October 1940. I have been unable to establish his reason to join up and can only speculate that this was due to either peer pressure or indeed family pressure, although the latter was unlikely.
He was selected for Pilot/Observer training and returned to work on the farm for a further 6 months until he received his call-up papers at the end of March 1941. During his initial training, Harry met several FP friends he had not seen since leaving school. Early in July he set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia, followed by a long train journey to Arcadia in Florida for pilot training which, much to his disappointment, he failed. Returning to Canada, he was stationed at various RCAF and RAF airfields, receiving training in radio, navigation and general skills.
Christmas 1941 was spent at sea returning to Britain. After much ‘downtime’ at Bournemouth and Hastings, he was posted up to ACRC in London and, at the beginning of April, he was posted to RAF Ansty near Coventry to try again (rather unusually) for his pilot’s wings. Alas, he failed again and off he went to ACDW at Brighton before travelling north to West Freugh, Stranraer and then to No. 10 (O)AFU at Dumfries for air gunner and observer training.
The trail so far has been obtained partly from his frequent letters home to his mother and those I now hold on behalf of the next generation. There was never any reference to any military matters whatsoever but Harry always commented on what was happening in the farming scene surrounding him and how some of the husbandry practices differed from those he had seen in the Scottish Borders. He greatly missed the farming life which had been interrupted by the war.
After obtaining a copy of Harry’s Service Records from RAF Cranwell, I then had the ‘master key’ to requesting further information from the Air Historical Branch at RAF Northolt. They provided me with helpful answers to a list of questions as much of the information in his ROS was abbreviated in a format which only those in the know could interpret!
Unfortunately my uncle’s Flying Log Book was missing so the next contact was The National Archive (TNA) at Kew, London. Knowing his two operational squadrons, 106 Sqn. RAF Syerston (2 February – 30 March 1943) and 83 Sqn. RAF Wyton (end of March to mid-May 1943) narrowed down the search. The Squadron Operational Records from TNA produced very interesting information, including details of his 14 missions with 106 Squadron and 10 missions with 83 Squadron, crew, aircraft type, targets, bomb loads and target indicators carried, the latter when flying with 83 Sqn. as Pathfinder Force. Harry had retrained as a Bomb Aimer before being posted to Syerston so he would be interested in what his Lancaster’s bomb bay held and particularly the 1,000 lb bomb hang-up on the return from a raid on Stettin. When he was stationed at Syerston, Harry’s missions included Cologne, Hamburg, Lorient, Bremen, Nuremberg, Cologne, St. Nazaire, Berlin, Hamburg, Essen, Nuremberg, Baltic Sea (mine-laying), Essen and St. Nazaire.
When Harry and his crew transferred to RAF Wyton, the wireless operator, Sgt. T. Whiteley, did not remain with the all-sergeant crew but no explanation for this was available. Information found recently on the internet confirmed that Whiteley was killed serving with 44 Sqn. on a raid on Hanover in mid-January 1944. The replacement W.Op./AG was F/O S. W. Gould.
Harry’s targets with 83 Sqn. were Berlin, St. Nazaire, Essen, Kiel, Duisburg, Pilsen, (he flew as ‘odd bod’ on this mission with another crew), Spezia (Italy), Stettin, Duisburg, Dortmund (return flight with two engines u/s and the third overheating) and Pilsen – this fateful final flight being cut short over the Netherlands on the night of 13/14 May 1943. F/O Gould was the sole survivor of the crash near Lemmer in Friesland and was a POW in Stalag Luft III, Sagan until May 1945. Attempts to locate him or his relatives have not been successful to date and attempts to trace relatives of Sgt. A.S. Renshaw brought our enquiries fairly close but then faded possibly when family sensitivities were introduced. Relatives of the remainder of the crew have been located by me and a Dutch friend over the past 12 years or so.
Harry certainly packed in a lot of operational flying in three and a half months but he would be required to complete a total of forty missions on his first Tour as part of a PFF Squadron.
One important piece of advice I offer to any reader considering a similar search of a relative’s service in Bomber Command is to start now – do not put off to a future date! Although much information is held in TNA, that wartime generation who knew the Bomber Boys is getting a bit thin on the ground and getting first-hand answers to questions is not easy. If only I had started asking the questions about 10 years ago then both Harry’s sisters would have still been alive and fit enough to provide some more information.
The crew of Lancaster W4981 killed in the crash are buried in the village cemetery in Lemmer. I have visited my uncle’s grave several times over the years and I plan to return this September (2010). A meeting is arranged to meet for the first time with my Dutch friend who knows the crash site and who also has several artefacts from the aircraft.
My uncle’s aircraft was shot down by a Messerschmitt 110 night fighter piloted by Oberleutnant Lothar Linke, a German ace with 28 RAF aircraft to his credit. He in turn was shot down a few days later and did not survive the crash. The 110 was a notoriously difficult aircraft to bale out from with crew frequently hitting the tailplane.
Although my Dutch contact sent me copies of archive newspaper articles of this crash, material is also available on the internet. What a source of information if you know how to work through the system!
Somewhere out there I feel there is still information available to complete my search for
relatives of the two afore-mentioned aircrew. The following names of the complete crew may jog a few memories:
- Sgt. A. S. Renshaw (535117) – Pilot
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Sgt. H.R. Williamson (1365974) – Bomb aimer
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Sgt. J.E. Lecomber (1393387) – Navigator
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F/O S.W. Gould (47704) – W/Op.
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Sgt. F.A. Worsnop (1083323) - F/Engineer
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Sgt. J.M. Hargreaves (1310051) – M/U/G
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Sgt. J.R. Stone (1323951) – R/G
Harry had a long journey from his Aircrew Candidate Selection Board interview on 28 October 1940 in Edinburgh which finished near Lemmer in The Netherlands on 13 May 1943, dying at the age of 22 years.
‘Dying for a noble cause is not the worst thing,
Being forgotten is’
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