Robert George (bob) Barrell

Robert George “Bob” Barrell (service number 78524), born in 1919, was a pilot of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and the son of Captain Robert Dunkerton Barrell and Ethel Rose Barrell. He flew early in the war as a second pilot with No. 77 Squadron on Whitley bombers — on the night of 14/15 November 1940 his aircraft, bound for Berlin, was struck by lightning that knocked out its radio yet still landed safely at Topcliffe — and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this service, gazetted in 1941. Moving to No. 7 Squadron in the Pathfinder Force, he flew Stirlings and then Lancasters, earning a Bar to his DFC (gazetted March 1943) and the Distinguished Service Order (gazetted June 1943), and was twice Mentioned in Despatches; by 1943 he was commanding the squadron. On the night of 24/25 June 1943, during the major raid on Wuppertal-Elberfeld, his Lancaster III ED595 (coded MG-Q) was shot down over the Netherlands; he is reported to have baled out, but his parachute failed and he was killed at the age of 23. He died on what was said to be his sixtieth operation, the last before he would have become tour-expired, and is buried in Bergen-op-Zoom War Cemetery in the Netherlands (grave reference 3.B.3).