13 – Crashlocation Rijsoord (June 29, 1943)
This night a great number of Lancaster bombers returned from a bombing of Cologne, Germany. Among them a Lancaster of RAF 100 squadron, numbered HW-E, registration number ED 362. This aircraft had left RAF base Grimsby near Waltham, in England. On its way back over Holland about 02.40 a.m. the plane was fired at by a German night fighter over the island of Hoekse Waard (just South of Rotterdam, Holland) and a fire broke out on board. One of the seven English and Canadian crew jumped out of the burning plane and saw it continue on its way West. He landed just outside the village of Strijen. Wounded in both legs, he knocked on the door of a nearby house and the inhabitant took him on a bicycle to the village. The village physician took care of him. The next day German soldiers took him prisoner, but he survived the war. The burning aircraft crashed at Rijsoord, a village on this island, and the remaining 6 crew were all killed. Their bodies were taken from the wreck by German soldiers, and taken to the churchyard of Crooswijk, in Rotterdam. Their graves can be visited there.
Crooswijk cemetary Rotterdam
Monument Rijsoord
Victim(s) at this location:
36 – Philip V. Pascoe
37 – Frank Wheeldon
38 – Horace H. Gentle
39 – Chris B. Wood
40 – Joe Reffin
41 – Robert D.W. Moulton