Lawrence William Nichols

Lawrence William Nichols was born on 17 May 1910 in Northwood, Middlesex, the eldest of four children of Edward and Florence Nichols. In civilian life he married Georgina West in 1933, raised two children, and worked first as a haberdasher in Oxford Street and later as the manager of a Currys branch in North Harrow before volunteering for the Royal Air Force in 1940. Trained as a wireless operator/air gunner, he crewed up at No. 10 Operational Training Unit at RAF Abingdon in July 1942 and flew his first operations under other pilots before the crew came together under Squadron Leader Henry Melvin Young; the men moved to No. 57 Squadron at RAF Scampton in March 1943 and were almost immediately reposted to the newly formed No. 617 Squadron. On the night of 16/17 May 1943, during Operation Chastise, Sergeant Nichols served as wireless operator aboard Lancaster ED887/G “AJ-A”, which made the fourth attack on the Möhne Dam, dropping its mine accurately and contributing to the breaching of the dam. On the return flight the aircraft was hit by flak near Castricum-aan-Zee on the Dutch coast and crashed into the North Sea in the early hours of 17 May 1943, killing all aboard — Nichols dying on his 33rd birthday. His body was washed ashore on 27 May 1943, and he is buried in Bergen General Cemetery in the Netherlands alongside his crewmates Vincent MacCausland and Gordon Yeo.