DT777
Crashes > of the R.A.F.
During the bombing raid on Bochum, the Halifax II, DT777 received an anti-aircraft hit at an altitude of around 5,700 metres. The 4th/heavy Flak Abt. 371 had taken the Halifax under fire, flak fragments wounded the gunner in the upper MG position, Pilot Officer Leverett, in the head and set the left inner engine on fire. The controls had also been so badly damaged that the aircraft was no longer controllable. The pilot, Sergeant Clay, then ordered the crew to leave the aircraft. He was one of the last to leave the aircraft and float to earth by parachute.
The Halifax flew on without a pilot and crashed in an open field at Oberkarthausen near Radevormwald. The aircraft burrowed into the field, exploded and burnt out. The wreckage was spread over a wide area, but no fatalities or survivors were found in the wreckage.
The next day, the wreckage of the aircraft was collected and transported away by a recovery unit from Airfield Command 26/VI in Cologne-Ostheim. The recovery team also included 19-year-old Private Siegfried Bruder. He came across a live flashlight bomb during the clean-up operation. When he picked it up, it exploded in his hands, causing him serious injuries and burns. He died on 16 May 1943 at the age of 19.
The flight engineer, Sergeant Leslie Jakes , was probably the last to come out of the aircraft, but his parachute did not open and he crashed to the ground unchecked. He was rescued east of Radevormwald with a broken cervical vertebra and buried in Cologne's Südfriedhof cemetery on 19 May 1943.
The rest of the crew landed between Wuppertal, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Radevormwald and became German prisoners of war.
Source: I received additional information about the crash from the Radevormwald town archives. Thank you very much for that !
Above:
The crash site of the Halifax II, DT777.
Source: Hilmar Selbach, Leverkusen / Research into the crash of a Halifax bomber in Radevormwald on 14 May 1943.
Radevormwald town archives
left:
Death certificate for Sgt Leslie Jakes.
left:
Grave location of Sgt. Leslie Jakes at the Cologne South Cemetery.