Frederick Michael Spafford

Frederick Michael Spafford, universally known as “Spam,” was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on 16 June 1918, and was Australian; born Frederick Michael Burke, he took the surname Spafford after being adopted by his maternal grandfather following the death of his parents. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in September 1940, trained as a bomb aimer under the Empire Air Training Scheme, and after arriving in England joined No. 50 Squadron RAF in 1942, flying operations on Manchesters and then Lancasters and earning the Distinguished Flying Medal in October 1942 before being commissioned early in 1943. In March 1943 he was recruited into the newly formed No. 617 Squadron, where his reputation as an outstanding bomb aimer led to his selection for the crew of the squadron’s commanding officer, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, in Lancaster ED932 “AJ-G.” On the night of 16/17 May 1943 he flew as bomb aimer in the first aircraft to attack the Möhne Dam during Operation Chastise, the Dams Raid, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Spafford was killed on the night of 15/16 September 1943 during the costly attack on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, flying in the crew of Wing Commander George Holden, whose Lancaster was lost with no survivors. He is buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Germany, where many of those killed over western Germany were later gathered.