P1355

It was in this Handley Page Hampden of No. 83 Squadron that 18-year-old wireless operator/air gunner Sergeant John Hannah won the Victoria Cross. Over Antwerp on the night of 15 September 1940, after bombing the invasion barges being assembled there, the aircraft was set ablaze by anti-aircraft fire. With the rear gunner and navigator already gone by parachute, Hannah stayed aboard and fought the flames — first with extinguishers, then with his bare hands — beating them out despite terrible burns, so that the pilot could fly the wrecked bomber home. Hannah remains the youngest airman ever to receive the Victoria Cross.