Herbert’s parent and date of birth are unknown. He enlisted into the 61 Squadron, Royal Air Force, his service no was 411560. He died on 23 September 1944. The information below is the last details of what happened to Herbert.
Plane data: AVRO Lancaster III Serialnr: LM718
Call sign: QR-K Unit: 61 Sqdn.
Take off at 07:17 PM: Skellingthorpe airfield. Target: Ladbergen,Germany.
Crashed at 09:15 PM at Zandbos along Helmondseweg, Deurne.
Temporarily buried Deurne.
Reburied 11/10/1946 Venray war cemetery. VIII. C. 11. Limburg Netherlands
Sergeant Herbert William Jennings 411560
Herbert was an Air Gunner with 61 Squadron based at RAF Skellingthorpe. He was killed on the 23rd September 1944. Their target for their 5th operation was the Dortmund/EMS Canal at Ladbergen, 15 miles north of Munster on the 23/24 September 1944.
Shortly after crossing the Dutch coast they were attacked by a Bf 110, both gunners engaged and the enemy aircraft broke away. They were then concentrated on by flak batteries and found themselves coned by searchlights. The Skipper dived the aircraft down from 20,000 feet, and by 10,000 feet they had lost the searchlights.
The aircraft was not responding to the controls. They continued to lose control and it was deemed prudent to jettison the bombs and return to base. However, when the load went the aircraft became even more difficult to control and despite the combined efforts of the Skipper and the Flight Engineer, backwards pressure on the control column was having no effect and they continued down alarmingly.
The order was given to abandon aircraft. It is known from a Dutch source that aircraft Lancaster III, LM718 QR-K was damaged by flak and then finished off by a fighter attack, crashing near Deurne in Holland at 2230 hrs.
www.ancestry/cwgc/RAF. Collated by Linda Taylor
