James Fortune Bain

James Fortune Bain was born around 1921 or 1922 and grew up in Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, the son of Alexander and Jeanie Curtis Bain. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force and trained as a flight engineer, qualifying for heavy-bomber operations in Bomber Command. By early 1943 he was serving as a sergeant with No. 101 Squadron, flying Avro Lancasters from RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor in Yorkshire, and was just twenty-one years old. On the night of 14–15 February 1943, Bain flew as flight engineer aboard Lancaster I ED377 SR-X, captained by Sergeant Ivan Hazard, on a raid against Milan; after the aircraft was attacked by a night-fighter over the target, fires took hold in the fuselage and on the port outer engine, and Bain joined his crewmates in fighting the flames with extinguishers before carefully managing the fuel system throughout the long, damaged flight back over the Alps to England — so precise was his handling of the fuel cocks that only fifteen gallons remained in the port inner tank on landing. For his skill and courage that night Bain was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (Flying), the decoration gazetted on 19 March 1943 — one of a remarkable four CGMs granted to the same crew for the same sortie. He did not live to receive the recognition in peacetime: on 20 March 1943, less than five weeks after the Milan raid, Bain was killed when Lancaster ED446 SR-N broke apart after striking a concrete pill-box during a low-level air test at Hornsea beach, with no survivors from those aboard. He is buried at Cambuslang (Westburn) Cemetery, Rutherglen, Scotland.