Last flight of JA853
This haunting polyptych, courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, depicts the final moments of RAF 7 Squadron Pathfinder Force Avro Lancaster JA853 MG-L, bound for Berlin, but instead was downed over Holland by night fighter pilot Oberleutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer in a Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4 (G9+DZ) of 12./NJG 1. JA853 took all seven of her crew with her.
As described by the AWM:
A memorial dedicated to five Australian and two British airmen was unveiled at Follega, in the Netherlands, last weekend. The seven men were amongst more than 55,000 lives lost in Bomber Command during the Second World War and were tragically shot down in Avro Lancaster JA853 MG-L in December 1943.
The establishment of this memorial, more than six years in the making, was an initiative undertaken by Diana Bentley, the niece of pilot Wallace Watson RAAF, and Melvin Chambers, who works to preserve the memory of Australian Dambuster pilot, Les Knight, DSO.
JA853 is also featured in a short film that depicts the incident in which these young men were killed, which was enabled through communication between Memorial staff and 7 Squadron (PFF) RAF Association in the UK.
These four still images from the short film sequence, which will soon be displayed in the Bomber Command gallery of Anzac Hall, accurately portray the event in which top German night-fighter ace, Heinz Schnaufer, shot down the Australian-British flown Lancaster bomber, using vertically firing ‘jazz music’ cannons.
Six of the seven crew members of Lancaster JA853 MG-L had previously flown the Memorial’s own ‘G for George’ when they were serving with 460 Squadron (RAAF). For their skill, they were chosen to join the elite Pathfinders with 7 Squadron RAF, marking targets for the main Bomber Command force.
While Schnaufer survived the war, with the record of the most successful night fighter pilot in the history of air warfare with 121 victories, the RAAF captured his plane in 1945, and one of its rear stabilizers hangs in the AWM.