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| Sergeant Michael Howard RAWLINS (1234574) | |
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50 Squadron Royal Air Force Date of birth: 10th May 1914 Date of death: 12th October 1942 Killed in action aged 28 Buried at Hamburg Cemetery Plot 5A Row A Grave 8 |
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| Michael Howard Rawlins was born at Amesbury, Wiltshire on the 10th of May 1914 the youngest son of Frank Rawlins, a farmer, and Mary Whitridge (nee Edwards) Rawlins of Alton Magna, Figheldean near Salisbury in Wiltshire. He was christened at Figheldean on the 21st of August 1914. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Gibbs House from January 1928 to July 1932. He was a member of the Officer Training Corps where he achieved Certificate A in 1932 and on leaving school he went on to the Royal Military College Sandhurst but there is no record of his graduating. By 1937 he was living with his brother Geoffrey at 11, Eardley Crescent, Earls Court in London. Following the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve where he trained as a pilot and rose to the rank of Sergeant. He was married at the Parish Church, Southam, Warwickshire on the 3rd of August 1941 to Joan Campbell (nee Caldwell) of Southam and they lived at 40, The Close, Salisbury. They had a daughter, Susan Howard, born in 1943. On the 10th of August 1942 he and his crew were posted to a Conversion Unit to convert from Manchester to Lancaster aircraft before being posted to 50 Squadron for operations. On the 12th of October 1942, Bomber Command dispatched 50 Lancasters for an operation on the town of Wismar. Despite bad weather conditions, crews from the returning aircraft claimed to have started a large fire at the target. Michael Rawlins and his crew took off from RAF Swinderby in Lancaster Mk 1 R5902 VN-T at 6.02pm for the operation. The aircraft was hit by enemy anti aircraft fire and crashed into Lubeck Bay at 9.45pm, some 10 miles from the east coast and approximately 34 miles to the south east of Kiel and Lubeck, with just one of the crew members surviving to spend the rest of the war as a prisoner. The crew was: - Sergeant Michael Howard Rawlins (Pilot) Sergeant Raymond Alfred Wilfred Hacker (Flight Engineer) Sergeant Alan Dabbs (Air Gunner/Wireless Operator) Sergeant Kent Oswald Thompson Summerville RAAF (Air Gunner/Wireless Operator) Sergeant Frederick Verdun Dacey (Mid Upper Gunner) Sergeant Sydney Harold Parker (Rear Gunner) Sergeant Terry McKerrow (Navigator) RAAF POW (Stalag Luft 6) Theirs was one of two aircraft which failed to return from the operation. In a letter dated the 23rd of October 1943, the only survivor from the aircraft, Sergeant Terry McKerrow RAAF, stated: - |
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| Gibbs House |
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