John Mervyn Dennis

John Mervyn Dennis (service number 41783) was a Royal Air Force officer who served as a bomber pilot with No. 7 Squadron, part of the Pathfinder Force, flying Avro Lancasters from RAF Oakington. By 1944 he held the Distinguished Flying Cross and the acting rank of Squadron Leader, and his record showed a very large number of operational sorties; the citation for his Distinguished Service Order praised the skill, courage and devotion to duty he had repeatedly shown. That DSO, gazetted on 13 June 1944 (London Gazette, Issue 36566, page 2873), recognised an operation one night in May 1944 when he captained one of a formation detailed to attack the railway junction at Chambly, pressing home his attack with great accuracy despite the enemy defences. He was killed on the night of 19/20 May 1944, aged 30, while taking part in a Pathfinder attack on the railway yards at Le Mans, flying alongside the Master Bomber Wing Commander Fraser Barron; the two squadron Lancasters are believed to have collided over the target, and all the men aboard both aircraft were lost. The son of John Edward and Sarah Dennis, he is buried in Le Mans West Cemetery, France (Plot 38, 1939-45 Row C, Grave 22), and his DSO was therefore awarded posthumously.