Sgt. Kenneth Ernest Webb
Royal Air Force 76 Squadron
from:25 Windsor Street, Cheltenham
(d.17th Apr 1943)
Sgt Pilot Kenneth Webb was the skipper of Handley Page Halifax DK165 MP-E.
His crew were:
- F/Sgt Stanley Braybrook Fight Engineer
- F/Sgt Allen Ross RCAF Wireless Operator
- Sgt Jack Kay Bomb Aimer
- Sgt Kenneth Rees Williams Navigator
- Sgt Leslie Mitchell Mid-upper-gunner
- F/Sgt Geoffrey Brown Rear gunner.
On 16th/17th of April 1943 they bombed the Skoda Works in Pilsen Czechoslovakia. Over the target they were caught in searchlights but successfully slipped out of the beams. On the return flight they were twice attacked. The first attack was an explosion at the rear, and the pilot Ken Webb ordered Mitch to go aft to check on the rear gunner Geoff. As he reached aft and saw that most of the turret had gone, Mitch, after the war, to Ken Webb's parents, explained that at that moment there was a terrific explosion amidships immediately beneath the mid upper turret, breaking the Halifax in half, and he came down in the tail section 'spinning like an autumn leaf'.
On the ground, German civilians rescued him from the wreckage. The crash site is located in forest-land in Lachen Speyerdorf Germany and a Memorial now stands at the spot where the cockpit came to rest. The site was located and excavated by permission of the German Government by Herr Erik Wieman and Herr Peter Berkel of IG Heimat Forschung in 2015, the Memorial being consecrated on 4th August 2018 when families of the crew attended. Frau Hedi Kraus also attended. A young girl in 1943, her mother gave permission for her to lay flowers on the graves in the local cemetery, where the crew had been buried by the Luftwaffe with full military honours. I am Ken Webb's nephew and next of kin, also Ken Webb, and it was an amazing moment when Hedi called out in German, "Please, Ken Webb Junior lay these flowers for ken Webb Senior and all the crew as I did." It was an incredible moment. I also met the son of the late Herr Manfred Watta, who had died shortly before, and who had supplied a drawing to the excavation team of the crash site on the morning that Manfred had seen it as a boy. Herr Watta went on to become a very successful architect and artist and is survived by his widow and son.
The operation was a maximum effort, comprising a force of 609 aicraft on a split raid between Pilsen and Mannheim, the latter to draw German air defences away from the main stream heading for the Skoda Works. 54 planes failed to return, a loss of 378 aircrew which, at the time was reported to be the highest single loss of the Strategic Air Offensive. It is extraordinary that the nephews of the pilot and flight engineer are now good friends who meet regularly since 2017.
