PILOT OFFICER WALTER HENRY – RAFVR & LANARKSHIRE CONSTABULARY

Today we remember Constable Walter Henry of Lanarkshire Constabulary. Walter was killed in action on the 20th of February 1944 when his Lancaster Bomber was shot down at Essen, Lower Saxony in Germany.

CONSTABLE WALTER HENRY

LANARKSHIRE CONSTABULARY

Walter was born on the 5^th of June 1912 at 190 Garrioch Road in Maryhill, Glasgow. His father was a Mercantile Bookkeeper. Walter was educated in the area, together with his brothers and sisters. The family later moved to Largs in Ayrshire. In his youth he was an Air Cadet.

It is thought that Walter joined Lanarkshire Constabulary in the mid 1930’s. There is no indication of where he worked.

In 1941, Walter enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at Edinburgh. Following initial training he was selected for pilot training in Canada, eventually being promoted Flight Sergeant in January 1944 and shortly thereafter Pilot Officer attached to 514 Squadron based at RAF Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire.

At 2351 hours on the evening of Saturday the 19^th of February 1944, Walter and his crew of six took off in their Avro Lancaster II ‘DS823’ with the markings JI-M. The target was an industrial area to the south of the Leipzig. There were 23 aircraft from the squadron involved in the attack. Four were withdrawn after take-off, three returned early and 3 were reported missing.

514 Sqn. Lancasters at Waterbeach, early 1944

As they flew over Essen-Osterlo, there was heavy flak and in addition they were intercepted by Luftwaffe night fighters. Unfortunately. Walter’s aircraft was shot down with the loss of all crew.

It is thought that the aircraft was shot down at 0230 hrs en-route to the target, crashing on the Southwest edge of Grosses Moor, 11km north-west of Rahden. This was some distance south of the planned route and it is not known if the aircraft was off track when attacked or its combat and subsequent struggles took it away from the stream. The only verified claim anywhere near where the Lancaster crashed was for an unidentified 4-engined aircraft by Leutnant Hans Raum, the details given as ‘50 km SW of Hannover at 0241 hrs.

It is therefore considered that this is a possible cause of the loss of DS823. ‘Nachtjagdt War Diaries’ notes that Hauptmann Erhard Peters claimed five Lancaster’s this evening, including one shot down at 0233 hrs but these were not verified as, the same night, Peters was killed when he was shot down in error by another night fighter.

The bodies of Walter and his crew were recovered and later buried at the Rheinberg Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Germany. His headstone reads – ‘IN LOVING MEMORY. FOR EVER IN OUR THOUGHTS. MOTHER, SISTERS AND BROTHERS’.

Walter is remembered at the Lanarkshire Constabulary War memorial, Largs War memorial and the  514 Squadron memorial at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Waterbeach, South Cambridgeshire.

May he Rest in Peace.

Lanarkshire Constabulary War Memorial