LM621 (HW-C) 100 Sqn

LM621 was an Avro 683 Lancaster Mk III aircraft and was built by A. V. Roe at Yeadon. It was delivered to 100 Sqn on 14 Jun 44.

 

It was given the code HW-C to replace ND456 which the same crew flew until 02 Jun 44, when they hit a barn at the end of RAF Grimsby's runway on take-off at 2345hrs. They could neither get the undercarriage up nor down, so flew around for 3 hours burning fuel and jettisoning their bombs in the North Sea before crash landing at RAF Woodbridge wrecking the aircraft. All the crew escaped uninjured.

​

Previous missions of LM621 were the following:

Domelegar 16-6-44 

Rheims 22-6-44

Hayons  24-6-44

Ligescourt 25-6-44 

Vaires 28-6-44

Domegar 29-6-44

 

LM621 successfully completed 6 missions before being shot down on 01 Jul 44 on an attack on the Vierzon Railyards 130 miles south of Paris. The aircraft was hit before it got to its target. There is some confusion as to what brought the aircraft down, but it was likely to have been shot down by Rudolf Morenz (5./NJG 2) flying a modified JU-88 aircraft with upward firing cannon, known as Schrage Musik. The aircraft initially caught fire in the wing, but the fire soon moved to the fuselage when the pilot, W. Kay, gave the order to bale out. The aircraft crashed near Vouzon.

 

Between May 43 and July 44 the HW-C code was given to 7 Lancasters, which shows the attrition rate Bomber Command was suffering at the time. The aircraft with the HW-C code are shown below:

 

25/05/1943 - LM320 - All 7 crew killed
16/06/1943 - EE140 - 1 injured, 6 safe
02/08/1943 - ED705 - All 7 crew killed
23/08/1943 - ED652 - All 7 crew safe
02/01/1944 - JB549 - All 7 crew killed
02/06/1944 - ND456 - All 7 crew safe
30/06/1944 - LM621 - 1 killed - 3 POW, 3 escaped