John Wilkinson

John Wilkinson was born on 2 May 1922 in the Cheshire village of Antrobus, near Northwich, the son of a farmer; his mother died of tuberculosis when he was an infant, and after leaving the village school at fourteen he worked on the family farm before joining the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at eighteen. He qualified as a wireless operator/air gunner in the summer of 1942 and, after passing through 29 Operational Training Unit and 1654 Conversion Unit, was crewed up with the Canadian pilot Vernon Byers; the crew served briefly with 467 Squadron from February 1943 before transferring to the newly formed No. 617 Squadron on 24 March 1943. During a final period of leave Wilkinson returned home to celebrate his twenty-first birthday on 2 May, taking his two Canadian crewmates with him. On the night of 16/17 May 1943 he flew as wireless operator in Lancaster ED934, coded AJ-K, as part of the second wave detailed against the Sorpe Dam on Operation Chastise, the Dams Raid. Their aircraft was the first of the night to be lost: flying off track, it crossed the heavily defended Dutch island of Texel, was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed into the Waddenzee off the Frisian coast, west of Harlingen. Of the seven men aboard only the rear gunner’s body was recovered; Wilkinson, then a sergeant aged twenty-one, has no known grave and is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial (Air Forces Memorial) in Surrey.