Robert Anthony Maurice Palmer

Acting Squadron Leader Robert Anthony Maurice Palmer was a Pathfinder pilot awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Born at Gillingham, Kent, on 7 July 1920, he was a highly experienced master bomber serving with No. 109 Squadron of the Path Finder Force, and already held the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar. On 23 December 1944, on his 111th operation, he led a daylight attack on the railway marshalling yards at Cologne, flying a Lancaster so that he could use its Oboe blind-bombing equipment to mark the target for the force behind him. Coned by flak and with two engines ablaze, he held the burning aircraft straight and level to make an accurate marking run, released his bombs on the aiming point, and was last seen spiralling to earth in flames; only the rear gunner survived. He was 24, and is buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery, Germany.