British Forces

Target Genoa, shot down in France

www.histavia21.net

The people of Montcony, a village of Saône-et-Loire’s department, in Bourgogne, East-Center France, surrounding the wreck of a British bomber aircraft crashed in the environs late evening of 23 October 1942. The airplanes is the Handley Page Halifax II, serial W1018, EY+?, of the RAF Bomber Command No 78th Squadron, took off at 5.51 p.m. from RAF Linton-on-Ouse (North Yorkshire) for a night raid against Genoa but never arrived over the target. In the sky of the Bourgogne was intercepted and shot down by in flames a German night fighter. The Halifax crashed at 10.15 p.m. near the park of the Montcony’s castle killing the entire eight crew men: Sergeant Frederick George Allen RAF, Sergeant John Beveridge RAF, Sergeant George James Chambers RAF, Sergeant Albert Ernest Messer, Sergeant William Stanley Rausch RCAF, Flight Lieutenant Harold Rhoden RAF DFC, Sergeant Eric Walton RAF, Flying Officer Denis Franck Teague RCAF, all buried in the Montcony’s cemetery. Some leaflets for drop over target was uncovered in the wreck. Less than two months later on the night from 11 to 12 December 1942 another RAF Halifax, Serial DT579, NP-V, No 185 Squadron RAF Lisset (Yorkshire), again direct to Northern Italy, Turin this time, crashed in the same Region. The bomber, hit by Flak and perhaps also by a night fighter, crashed near the village of Villeneuve-en-Montagne. The entire crew, seven men, was killed. Victor Sierra