Leslie Ronald Barr

Flight Lieutenant Leslie Ronald Barr (service number 43627) was a British RAF pilot who served throughout the early bombing campaigns of the Second World War. He flew Short Stirling heavy bombers with No. 15 Squadron from RAF Wyton, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for an attack on submarine slipways at Lübeck in which, despite his aircraft being struck repeatedly by anti-aircraft fire, he pressed home a determined assault from an extremely low level — a display of resolution that his citation described as outstanding. A Bar to the DFC followed in August 1942, both awards recognising a consistent pattern of cool courage under fire. In late August 1942 he was posted to No. 7 Squadron at RAF Oakington as part of the newly formed Pathfinder Force, created on 15 August 1942 to lead Bomber Command’s raids with precision target-marking. On the night of 10–11 September 1942, just weeks after the Pathfinders began operations, Barr was piloting Stirling I W7630 (coded MG:M) on a raid to Düsseldorf when his aircraft was struck by anti-aircraft fire and then shot down by a German night-fighter over the Netherlands; he was 28 years old and among the first Pathfinder casualties of the war. Six of his eight-man crew were killed; only two survived. He is buried at Jonkerbos War Cemetery in the Netherlands and is survived in memory by his wife, Lilian Elsie Barr of Kingswood, Gloucestershire.