The fate of the crew of the Short Stirling III WP-M BK718

It must have been a huge blow, the British Stirling bomber that crashed on 4 July 1943 near the German village of Mehlem, 10 kilometers southeast of the city of Bonn, during their bombing mission in the Cologne region.
Six of the 7 crew members of the Stirling were killed. One crew member, Ivor Norris, was able to parachute out of the plane in time and was taken prisoner of war after landing. Norris’s logbook is an important basis for this story of the Stirling crew and their fatal flight that day.

The story of Platt, Gilmour, Freeland, Beard, Smith, Murray, who are all buried in the Overloon War Cemetery.

Drawings made and donated by Ivan Berryman

Read here the full story of the fate of the crew of this British Stirling.