The last crew member to bail out, Sergeant Albert Elson, said Acting Flight Lieutenant Dobbin told him he would not jump while Sergeant Jury was on board, and he would instead try and crash-land.īut the aircraft's bomb load exploded, sending debris raining down on a Vaals meadow. He ordered the crew to bail out, but Sergeant Jury had a parachute malfunction and didn't jump. Wellington BJ767, flying from RAF Feltwell with a crew of five, was on a mission to Mainz, Germany, when an enemy night fighter attacked, setting the plane on fire.Īcting Flight Lieutenant Dobbin told the crew to jettison the bomb load but they were unable to do so. "Children from the primary school read letters from the Dobbin family, including a letter from Lorraine Dobbin, who was named after Laurence."īruls uncovered the story of the bomber crew and the crash, using eyewitness testimony, accounts from the surviving aircrew, archives, documents, newspaper clippings, letters, history books and on-the-ground research. We had a flag from Taranaki flying, received from the Dobbin family, and it will be donated to the primary school here in Vaals," he said. "I told the crowd about the crash and what had happened. More than 60 years later, on 9 November 2023, the date of Acting Flight Lieutenant Dobbin's birthday, village schoolchildren unveiled a plaque bearing the names of the five crew, mounted on a stone near the crash site.īruls said the ceremony drew a large crowd from the village, who observed a minute's silence, and a small brass band played the national anthems of the Netherlands and New Zealand. The other three crew bailed out on Dobbin's orders and were captured by the Germans. He and Air Gunner Sergeant Jack Leslie Jury, from Petone, were killed in an explosion as Acting Flight Lieutenant Dobbin tried to crash-land. Acting Flight Lieutenant Laurence St George Dobbin.
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