Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
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263724
Sgt. Frank William Charles "Bill" Robertson
Royal Air Force 408 Squadron
My father, Frank Robertson, was the Flight Engineer onboard Lancaster MkII DS788 EQ-C of 408 Goose Squadron, RCAF. My father was one of two RAF crew with the others all Canadian.
On the 19th/20th of February 1944 on a raid to Leipzig the aircraft was shot down by a German night fighter over Kropswolde Northern Holland. Only my father and the bomb aimer managed to bale out of the burning Lancaster before it crashed and exploded killing the remaining five young crew members.
The bomb aimer was caught and became a POW at Lufft Stalag 3. My father became an evader and crossed Holland, Belgium, and into Northern France, where he met up with the advancing Allied troupes and returned to England in early September 1944. The remaining crew members are buried in the Kerk Kropswolde.