LV920 - Luftkriegsarchiv Köln

Shortly before 10 p.m., the Halifax "Get up the Stairs" took off from Lissett airfield on its 93rd mission with this squadron. It had flown countless missions to targets in France and Germany, and all crew members were experienced fighters. Today's target was the Rhenania Ossag fuel processing plant in Düsseldorf.

Even during the approach to the target, the bomber fleet was attacked by German night fighters, and on the return flight, the anti-aircraft units of the 7th Anti-Aircraft Division around Düsseldorf and Cologne joined in. The Halifax had already been hit several times by a night fighter, fatally wounding the wireless operator, Fl/Sgt. Grant. Another flak hit prompted the pilot to order the crew to bail out.

Five of the seven crew members were able to parachute to safety from an altitude of approximately 2,000 metres and were taken prisoner by the Germans after landing. As F/O Pond reported after his release from captivity, the mayor and police chief of Fürden wanted to persuade the German soldiers who had captured them to shoot the prisoners or have them hanged by civilians. However, two P-47s approaching in low flight drove the people away with heavy machine gun fire, thus saving the prisoners' lives.

The pilot, F/O Ramsey, was unable to leave the aircraft and was killed when it crashed near a farmhouse in Drecke/Fürden. He and Fl/Sgt. Grant were recovered from the wreckage and buried in the Catholic cemetery in Thier. It was not until November 1947 that both were exhumed and laid to rest in the Reichswald Forest British Cemetery.

The crash site of Halifax LV920 near Kohlgrub-Fürden.

The Halifax LV920 with its "nose painting".

Newspaper clipping about pilot F/O Colin Ramsey, who was still considered missing at the time.

The initial burial site of F/O Ramsey.