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Flight Lieutenant G A Campbell and crew. Left to Right: Pilot Officer A Scribner RCAF, Flight Sergeant W Wishart RAF, Warrant Officer W Dicks RCAF, Flight Sergeant P Andrews RAF, Flight Lieutenant G A Campbell RCAF, Sergeant A Amos RAF, Flight Sergeant V A Verhay RAAF. The aircraft in the background is Lancaster ME317. This aircraft went missing on the 16/17th March 1945 on an operation to Nuremburg when flown by Flight Sergeant P F Sattler RAAF and crew. | |
Now without a crew Albert was transferred to 576 Squadron on the 19th October 1944. At this time the Squadron was based at Elsham Wolds but moved to a new base at Fiskerton on the 31st October 1944. Here he joined the crew of Flight Lieutenant G A Campbell RCAF. They started flying operations on the night of the 6/7th December 1944 with a raid on Merseburg and flew operations continually through the winter of 1944/45. Albert seems to have been in demand as a Flight Engineer because he also flew with the crews of Squadron Leader B Templeman-Rooke DFC to Wiesbaden on the 2/3rd February 1945 and Wing Commander B D Sellick DFC and bar to Politz on the 8/9th February 1945. Squadron Leader Templeman-Rooke was A Flight Commander and Wing Commander Sellick was the 576 Squadron Commanding Officer. In addition he flew with Flying Officer E J Pollard RAAF and crew on a daylight raid on the 24th March to attack the Harpenerweg benzol plant at Dortmund. On the 31st March 1945 Albert flew with his own crew in a daylight attack on the Blohm & Voss shipyards at Hamburg. The Squadron records state that Sergeant Amos was officially screened after this operation which means that he had finished his tour of operations. He continued to fly with the crew of Flight Lieutenant Campbell on another 3 operations finally completing his tour on the 22nd April 1945 with a daylight raid on Bremen in preparation to the assault on the city by the British XXX Corps. Flight Lieutenant Campbell and crew were screened soon after. Albert had flown 14 operations with 166 Squadron and 22 with 576 Squadron, 36 in total. On the 30th May 1945 he was posted to 1333 Transport Support Conversion Unit at Leicester East and soon after to 48 Squadron which operated Dakotas from Down Ampney. Albert was hospitalised again in August 1945 and returned to 48 Squadron, which was transferred to Patenga in Burma in September 1945. He was promoted to Flight Sergeant in December 1945. He left the RAF in March 1946 and married Sylvia Ellen Farmer at his hometown of Ashford in May of that year and they later had a son named Andrew John. Albert re-enlisted in the RAF in 1947 and served with 61 Squadron and 617 Squadron flying Avro Lincoln bombers. During his period with 617 Squadron he took part in a good will tour to the USA. He finally left the RAF for the second time in January 1950 after giving over ten years excellent and varied service. He remained on the RAF Reserve until 1959. Albert sadly passed away some years ago. We are grateful to Des Amos, Albert's brother, for the information and photographs used in this item. | |
