Lee | Oliver
Biography
Oliver was the son of Thomas Lee and Leonora Lee, Consett Co.Durham
Partner of Hilda Lee, Medomsly Road, Consett Co.Durham
Brother of Mrs S.E. Wylie, 79 Brian Delves Lane, Consett, Co.Durham.
Oliver had six siblings: John William (1897), Margaret Isabella (1900), Thomas Henry (1902), Sarah Ellen (1905), Wilfred (1914) and Audrey (1930).
Oliver worked in administration at Consett Iron Company’s head office before joining the army and training as an airman.
Oliver and Hilda married in 1941. Hilda was also working in payroll at this same company when she received the terrible news of Oliver’s death in 1944.
British air force at Keent in late September – October 1944
After Volkel airfield in Brabant became unusable in 1944 after bombing by the Allies, the Germans decide to occupy the small provisional airfield (which was no more than a swampy meadow) Keent. Local workers from the area are forced to build the 1,200m runway (grass runway). In August that year, the job was finished and actually forgotten by the Germans almost immediately afterwards.
In September, reconnaissance flights are carried out by the Allies to Brabant to inspect Volkel and Grave. After this, it is reported to the Wing Commander that Keent is a grassy meadow that is likely to be flooded in winter. Yet this place is the only one usable for operational purposes because Volkel has suffered too much from Allied air attacks than any other field.
The RAF Second Tactical Air Force (2TAF), part of the Royal Air Force is granted the use of airfield (airstrip) Grave-Keent. The airfield is codenamed B82.
The US Air Force’s 52nd Troop Wing prepares an airlift to supply Keent with a huge supply of military equipment, food and soldiers.
More than 200 twin-engined transport planes of the US Air Force landed in Keent on Tuesday afternoon, 26 September 1944, to support the resupply of Allied ground troops still desperately trying to reach Arnhem. Against every prediction, all aircraft returned to their bases in England by the evening unscathed; a feat.
A total of 132 jeeps and 75 trailers, 31 motorbikes, 12 tonnes of ammunition, 30 tonnes of food and 882 soldiers were to be flown to Keent. They were covered by more than 750 fighter planes, which closed off the airspace over Belgium and southern Holland to about 200 German fighter planes.
Although it was only an afterthought of Market Garden, Keent made history. It was the largest aerial supply mission to a frontline in history.
During the first three weeks of October 1944, the RAF Unit, equipped with single-engined fighters, used this landing strip.
The mental strain on the air force soldiers is heavy. The weather conditions are bad. The whole terrain is bad, wet and soggy. The tent camp consists of leaky tents. Patrol flights are undertaken every day and the German Luftwaffe is not sitting still either, aiming its arrows at the airfield in Keent.
The airfield is commissioned by the RAF on 2 October 1944 as airfield B-82 (Grave).
At this airstrip, 2 Wings of the Royal Air Force group 83 will be stationed, 125-Wing and 127-Wing, each consisting of 4 squadrons. Each squadron consists of 18 fighters and 25 pilots, supplemented by the ground crew.
The four squadrons of the 127-Wing come from Canada and fly Spitfighters IX and XVI. They will arrive on 30 September.
The 125-Wing squadrons, of which Oliver Lee is part, conduct their patrol flights from B86, a small airfield near Le Culot in Belgium, 50 km below Brussels. The pilots have to make long torturous journeys along taxiways to reach rolling runways damaged by bombing.
The Group Captain of 125-Wing also makes arrangements on 30 September for his men to find accommodation near Grave. On 2 October, ground personnel arrived from Culot by road vehicles. The convoy has passed through Belgian villages and towns and is enthusiastically waved at. The air force personnel are accommodated in a tent camp at Keent which was difficult to build up because of the wet and swampy ground. For now, the pilots’ accommodation is a barn made available by a friendly local farmer.
More and more 125-Wing fighters descend on B82. At various times, squadrons switch places. On 30 September, squadrons 130 (Punjab) and 402 (Winnipeg Bears from Canada) report with the Spitfire XVI. Together with Tempest-v squadrons 80 and 274, which join the 125-Wing from the 122-Wing on 1 October, this Wing is back to strength.
So from 2 October, eight squadrons with 144 fighters will operate from Keent.
To remind them that they were now much closer to the front lines, a Luftwaffe Me-262 drops bombs on the airfield that same afternoon.
The first attack is the only one to hit 127-Wing personnel. As pilots and ground crew watch the first fighter jets in their lives from their cover with amazement, their tents are torn to shreds. Three pilots are injured, two of them seriously.
Furthermore, one officer and six others suffer minor injuries. Immediately after the first attack, personnel are instructed on safety procedures in such attacks. As a result, subsequent attacks are less successful, at least as far as this Wing is concerned.
The second attack comes around noon, but the bombs fall far from the target. In the third attack, bombs from six Me-262s fall on the 125-Wing side of the runway. Apparently, 125-Wing received no warning and was taken by surprise, injuring 25 soldiers, some seriously.
Of them, two die at the emergency hospital in Grave, 27 year old 125-Wing’s cook, Leading Aircraftman Morton Dustin Goss (Royal Candadian Air Force) and 34-year-old Captain Oliver Lee (Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve), adjutant to the 125-Wing commander, married and from Consett in England.
From the 125-Wing, squadrons 80 and 274 are flown over to the now repaired Volkel airfield on 7 October and eventually both Wings, leave Keent on 21 October to relocate to Brussels-Melsbroek. Conditions in Keent are too bad to spend the winter here.
Leading aircraftman Morton Goss is buried at the Canadian War Cemetery in Groesbeek. Captain Oliver Lee is buried at the Roman Catholic cemetery in Grave.
His headstone reads:
God made divine all sacrifice
Through Christ
Upon the Cross.
Dearly loved.
Oliver Lee is mentioned on the War Memorial in Consett.
