Donald Edward Garland

Donald Edward Garland was born on 28 June 1918 at Ballinacor, County Wicklow, in Ireland, one of four brothers who would all serve in the Royal Air Force and all die during the Second World War. He joined the RAF in 1937 and by 1940 was a pilot officer with No. 12 Squadron, flying the Fairey Battle, a single-engined light bomber that was already dangerously outclassed by the time the war reached France.

When Germany invaded the Low Countries in May 1940, the Battles were thrown against the advancing columns and the bridges they depended on. On 12 May 1940 Garland led a section detailed to destroy the bridges over the Albert Canal at Veldwezelt, near Maastricht, which were ringed with anti-aircraft guns and covered by fighters. Pressing the attack home at low level through intense fire, Garland’s aircraft scored hits on the target, but his Battle was shot down and he and his crew were killed.

Garland and his observer, Sergeant Thomas Gray, were each awarded the Victoria Cross for the attack — the first VCs given to the Royal Air Force in the Second World War. The third member of the crew, Leading Aircraftman Lawrence Reynolds, the wireless operator and air gunner, was killed with them but not decorated, an omission later much criticised. The VCs were gazetted on 11 June 1940. Garland was 21. He is buried in Heverlee War Cemetery near Leuven in Belgium. His three brothers were also killed during the war, making the family one of the most grievously bereaved of the conflict.