Additional
information and
photographs: |
Bomber Command's last large raid on
Dortmund
The following details are from records held by the Ministry of
Defence Air Historical Branch (RAF).
Flight Sergeant Miller was the
navigator on Lancaster Bomber No PA179 AS-A which took off from RAF
Kirmington, Lincolnshire at 21:45 hrs on 20 February 1945 for a raid
against Dortmund. This aircraft was part of the force
of 514 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitoes which was detailed to destroy
the southern part of the city, from which 14 aircraft,
including Lancaster PA179, failed to return. The raid was
claimed as a success, and this was the last large raid by Bomber
Command on the city of Dortmund.
The circumstances of how the aircraft met its fate are not
known. It is presumed that it crashed near Rommerskirchen as a
result of enemy action. The 7 crew members, who all died, were
originally buried there, before being transferred later to the
Rheinberg War Cemetery. The other 6 crew members were: 87454 Squadron Leader Kenneth Lloyd Collinson DFC -
Pilot;
168775 Flying Officer John Mackie Sinclair DFC - Air Bomber; 189035 Pilot Officer Alexander James Adams
DFC -
Flight Engineer; 1585791 Flight Sergeant Alfred Cecil Harrison - Wireless Operator/Air Gunner; 130337 Flight Lieutenant
John Barritt DFC - Mid Upper Gunner; and 1897548 Sergeant Clifford
Ronald Anderson - Rear Gunner.
For details relating to this and other missions in
which F/Sgt Miller took part, it is possible to consult RAF records
held in the PRO under the reference 166 Squadron RAF - AIR
27/1090. If anyone collects more information from this source,
the DTI War Memorials Project would be grateful to receive it - please use the link on the Home Page to
contact us.
Charlie Miller, remembered by a colleague and friend
The official details set out above were researched during 2002 by
a retired member of DTI staff, Arthur Hornsby, who was a colleague and friend of
Charlie Miller when they worked together in the Board of Trade. In addition, Arthur has provided
some photographs and the following very warm tribute to his friend, whom
he remembers with some affection.
"I met Charlie soon after joining the
Board of Trade in late 1940. We
began as office colleagues but soon became good friends.
We worked in Insurance and Companies Department in Romney
House in Marsham Street (Ken Livingstone’s Mayoral home at the
moment, I believe). During the war it was a War Office building; the Board of
Trade occupied the East Wing and we dealt with compensation payments
under the War Risks Insurance Act.
When there was a major blitz on towns like Bristol,
Coventry, Liverpool and so on, we would send ‘flying squads’ to
assess the damage and deal with claims locally.
Home Guard duties
Charlie and I were also in the building fire
watch teams and in the local Home Guard, the latter to guard the
building at night. We
spent many an hour on the flat roof of Romney House either
fire-watching or carrying out Home Guard drills under the command of
a fiery little infantry Captain from
the First World War. He
was very much the Captain Mainwaring type of ‘Dad’s Army’
officer but he was very gung-ho when it came to teaching us bayonet
fighting. Charlie and I
often had a laugh over one incident when one of the Captain’s
fingers was split. He
merely bound it up with a handkerchief but his ‘attacker’ – a
big six-footer – fainted at the sight of blood.
Charlie and I were more the Private Pikes but not as
‘stupid’, I like to think.
 |
Photograph of Charlie Miller, courtesy of
Arthur Hornsby |
On fire-watching nights we would deal with the
odd incendiary (a bucket and spade job using sand, would you
believe). Fortunately
we were not on duty the night a bomb hit the building.
Even more fortunate, the bomb hit the parapet which detonated
it, sending most of the blast upwards and outwards; apart from
shattered windows the building did not suffer too much structural
damage, but there were some casualties.
Had the bomb not exploded at roof-top height, it would have
gone into the well of the building in the basement, where staff were
sleeping in shelters. (We
worked very long hours in those days and if you could not get home
because of the blitz, or you were on other duties, you stayed in the
building overnight.) The
last time I walked round that area, before I retired in 1984, I
could still see the pitted marks on the parapet and the surrounding
brickwork (viewed opposite from the carpark entrance).
The damage was soon patched up and we carried on working as
usual, I recall.
London in Wartime
Charlie Miller was an intelligent, cheerful,
bubbly young man. He
was very outgoing and well liked, especially by the ladies (he was a
handsome blighter with his blue eyes, wavy hair and strong white teeth).
To keep our spirits up we used to organise socials and dances
(usually in the upstairs room of the Paviour’s Arms or the
Westminster Arms). I
remember at one concert Charlie doing a very good impression
of his namesake Max Miller, the comedian.
Charlie and I also enjoyed dancing - mainly ballroom but we
used to shock some of the more staid civil servants with our jiving,
or jitterbugging as we called it in those days, which included
throwing your partner in the air or over your shoulder.
At lunchtimes we would sometimes go up to the Royal Opera
House in Covent Garden which was turned into a large ballroom during
the war and was very popular with the Americans.
We would go in our Home Guard uniforms, take off our brown
leather anklets and pretend to the girls that we were from the real
Army (our Home Guard shoulder flashes were a give-away though!)
One of my most poignant memories of Charlie is
of visiting his home in Bromley, in 1941 - a day I shall
never forget. It was a
lovely summer’s day and we went for a walk in a local park.
The air raid sirens sounded and soon we were lying on the
grass looking up at the dog fights going on high above us.
We saw the vapour trails and heard the high-pitched whine of
engines and the stuttering of machine guns.
We must have been on a hill because we could see the fires on
the horizon as dusk fell – the docks were ablaze.
When the all-clear sounded, I decided to try and get home (I
lived in Clapton at the time) but the bus only got as far as the
docks area when the sirens went again and we all went into an
underground street shelter. The
bombing resumed but this time I was right in the middle of it: the
memory remains with me to this day.
I also remember going to Bournemouth for a few days that
summer with
Charlie and another office colleague.
We stayed at the YMCA and, although it was blazing hot, we
couldn’t go onto the beaches as they were mined and fenced off
with barbed wire because of the threat of invasion.
 |
| Photograph of Charlie Miller on
holiday with Board of Trade colleagues in Bournemouth,
Summer 1941.
Charlie Miller is on the right, Arthur
Hornsby is in the centre. |
Charlie didn’t wait to be called up, as most
of us did. He
volunteered for the RAF towards the end of 1941 and went to East
London in South Africa for his training. Eventually
I went off into the Royal Navy. I was one of the lucky ones to come home, although I had my
moments, as we all did, such as taking part in the Normandy D-Day
landings on 6 June 1944. When
I returned to the Board of Trade on demobilisation in 1946, I
enquired about Charlie but the Department had no information about
him. I was posted to
the rather oddly-named Trading with the Enemy Department (later
renamed Administration of Enemy Property Department) and one of the
first persons I saw, in the office, was none other than the Captain
Mainwaring type who had trained us in our Home Guard duties. It
was in this department that I met my wife to be – Joyce Coombes
– and we were to enjoy 51 years of marriage and two sons: sadly I
lost her last year. I served in a number of departments including a three and a
half year tour with the British Trade Commission in Nairobi.
We were there in 1963 when Kenya became independent and
helped to set up the British High Commission – we were later
integrated into the Diplomatic Service.
I retired in 1984.
Reflections after sixty years
Writing this piece on Charlie has saddened me a
little. Many of us
returned and (without counselling) picked up where we left off, got
married, had families and enjoyed a full career. But Charlie was only
21 when he was killed in action and did not live to enjoy these things – what a waste of a young, vibrant life.
Let us hope that the present generation continue to remember
the ultimate sacrifice made by the Charlie Millers of our country in
the cause of freedom and ponder what life might have been like for
them had we lost the war. "
These
reminiscences were contributed by Arthur Hornsby in
September 2002.
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