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War crew find rest Berlin
buries Aussies
By
Leo Schlink, London
FOUR Australian World War II airmen will be buried
with full military honours in Berlin on Monday.
The ceremony will take place almost 60 years after they were shot down on a
bombing mission over Germany.
Pilot Ivan Durston, 32, wireless operator Robert Ludlow, 31, upper gunner
Phillip Gill, 20 and rear gunner Jack Sutherland, 22, died 40km north of
Berlin on January 29, 1944.
With them were three British crew: navigator Harold Fry, flight engineer
Francis Aver and bomb aimer Sidney Griffiths.
The Lancaster ED 867 plane took off from its base in Lincolnshire after
midnight.
It was shot down about three hours later on its way to Berlin.
A search found Pilot Officer Griffiths' body.
But the remains of the rest of the crew were found only two years ago.
Pilot Officer Griffiths was buried near the crash site before his body was
transferred to Berlin's 1939-45 war cemetery.
His crew mates will be buried near his grave on Monday.
A service will be held at the crash site, near Oranienburg.
RAAF personnel and members of the Queen's colour squadron of the Royal Air
Force will lead the funeral procession.
Last Post will sound and a piper will play a lament.
Several of the dead airmen's relatives are expected to attend the service.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which cares for scores of cemeteries
in Europe, will provide headstones.
There is already a UK memorial for the crew at Runnymede Memorial,
overlooking the Thames River on Cooper's Hill.
The fallen airmen were part of the famous RAAF 467 squadron, which boasted
20 Lancaster bombers at its peak.
The 467 squadron set wartime records and took part in nearly every major
effort of the bombing campaign over Germany.
It also helped clear a corridor for Allied invasion troops on the Cherbourg
Peninsula during the Normandy campaign.
Five of the squadron's members were awarded Distinguished Service Orders.
The group also attracted 146 Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Conspicuous
Gallantry Medals and 36 Distinguished Flying Medals.
But losses were also high -- 115 crews were lost, 105 of which were listed
as missing in action, and the chances of completing a tour of duty were
considered to be extremely low.
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