John Marriott

Sergeant John “Jack” Marriott DFM (service number 1003474, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve) was born on 19 January 1920 at New Smithy, a small village in the Derbyshire Peak District, and attended the village school at Chinley; before the war he worked at a local bleach works. After retraining as a heavy bomber flight engineer, he was posted to No. 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe on 25 August 1942, where he flew some twenty-three operations with the crew of Flying Officer Drew Wyness before joining Squadron Leader Henry Maudslay’s crew on a raid to Hamburg on 4 March 1943; he and the crew were posted to the newly formed No. 617 Squadron later that month. On the night of 16/17 May 1943, Marriott flew as flight engineer aboard Lancaster ED937, coded AJ-Z, in the first wave of Operation Chastise, the attack on the German dams, and his was the second aircraft to attack the Eder Dam, where its mine overshot. The damaged Lancaster was lost on the return flight, crashing near Emmerich on the Dutch–German border, and the whole crew was killed; Marriott, then aged 23, was the son of Thomas Henry and Lois Marriott of Chinley. Originally buried at Düsseldorf, he was reinterred after the war in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Germany, and he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, the recommendation noting his efficiency, enthusiasm for operational flying and determination in helping to hit the targets.