Group portrait of the crew of Lancaster PB290 JO-K at RAF Base Waddington. Identified left to ...

Group portrait of the crew of Lancaster PB290 JO-K at RAF Base Waddington. Identified left to right; 434484 Flying Officer (FO) Gwynne Thomas RAAF; 429369 FO Richard Rodney 'Rod' Young RAAF; 433194 FO Alan Campbell Bond RAAF; 431448 Flight Sergeant (Flt Sgt) Richard (Dick) Thurston Hawthorn RAAF; Sgt Phillip J Gwynne RAF; 433549 Flt Sgt Joslyn (Len) Lavarre Henderson RAAF and 419821 FO Henry Stanley "Mack" MacMeikan, RAAF. Less than twenty days after this photograph was taken, the crew took off from RAF Waddington on the night of 6/7th December 1944 to bomb the marshalling yards at Giessen, Germany. Of the nineteen aircraft from the Squadron that took part in the raid, only PB290 failed to return and its crew were posted as lost on operations. Following the war, it was later established that the aircraft crashed into woods about 3km north-east of Giessen. At the time of the crash, the remains of FO Young, FO MacMeikan, Flt Sgt Hawthorn and Sgt Gwynne, were recovered and buried in Giessen local cemetery. Later, they were reinterred in the Hanover War Cemetery. In 2004, German historians found part of the Lancaster's wreckage, and the remains of FO Bond, FO Thomas and Flt Sgt Henderson in a forest near Giessen. Family members of the crew joined representatives from the RAAF and the Australian Embassy in Berlin for a military funeral service for the remaining crewmembers on 13 September 2005.