Robert Norman George Barlow

Robert Norman George Barlow, known to his family as Norman, was born on 22 April 1911 in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, and ran a garage and motor business before the war while also qualifying as a civilian pilot. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and left Australia in the autumn of 1941, training in Canada, gaining his pilot’s badge and a commission in January 1942, and reaching England that March, where he passed through No. 16 Operational Training Unit before joining No. 61 Squadron at RAF Syerston in September 1942 as a Lancaster pilot. Having completed a full operational tour by March 1943 — flying against targets including Essen, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne — he was recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was gazetted on 14 May 1943, and he was selected for the new No. 617 Squadron, joining in the first week of April 1943. For Operation Chastise on the night of 16/17 May 1943 he captained Lancaster ED927, coded AJ-E, leading a seven-man crew detailed to the second wave against the Sorpe Dam, and his was the first aircraft of the whole raid to get airborne. Flying at low level over Germany, his Lancaster struck high-tension electricity cables near Haldern, a few miles east of Rees, at around 23:50 and crashed and burned, killing Barlow and all six of his crew. A Flight Lieutenant aged 32 at his death, he was first buried at the North Cemetery in Düsseldorf and after the war reinterred at Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, where he is commemorated today.