Floyd Alvin Wile

Floyd Alvin Wile was born on 17 April 1919 at Scotch Village, Nova Scotia, Canada, one of the children of Harris and Annabell Wile; before the war he attended local schools and worked in the timber trade. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in May 1941, trained as a navigator and qualified as an air observer in February 1942, then sailed for Britain, arriving in May 1942. After operational experience he served with No. 57 Squadron in the crew of Flight Lieutenant William “Bill” Astell DFC, and when the two were posted to the newly formed No. 617 Squadron in the spring of 1943 he went as Astell’s navigator. On the night of 16/17 May 1943 he flew on Operation Chastise, the attack on the German dams, aboard Lancaster ED864 coded AJ-B in the first wave bound for the Möhne Dam; the aircraft drifted slightly off course on the outward leg and, at about a quarter past midnight, struck a high-tension electricity pylon near Marbeck and crashed in flames, killing all seven men aboard. Pilot Officer Wile, service number J/16872, was 24 years old. He and his crew were first buried by the Germans at Borken and, after the war, reinterred together in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, where he lies in grave 21.D.15.