REASON FOR LOSS

Aircraft took-off from RAF WIckenby 1626hrs. Lost without trace presumed over the North Sea one of four Lancaster’s lost from 12 Squadron on this raid. All crew on this aircraft are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. The serial for this aircraft is unknown; it is recorded elsewhere and in the Squadrons ORB as W4789, however W4789 was transferred to No. 61 Squadron and lost on operations on 16th 17th June 1943.

Heading photograph shows 5 members of the crew with their Vickers Wellington aircraft while training at No.27 Operational Training Unit Lichfield. They are from left to right:  Doug Morphett (pilot), Bill Mauden (rear-gunner), Colin Miller (navigator), Jim Corke (bomb-aimer) and Keith Bond (wireless operator). England Sept 1942.

The Navigator on this crew Colin McDowell Miller was born in Melbourne and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at Melbourne University. He became a schoolteacher, posted to Coleraine and Bright. When war broke out, he joined the RAAF and trained as a pilot on Tiger Moths in Narrandera but was scrubbed from that program to retrain as a navigator. On 24 July 1941 he met Lorna Marion Bartley at a dance in Narrandera and they began the correspondence documented here.

Colin was killed in a night raid over Berlin in 1943. Lorna kept his letters, cards and gifts in a box at the bottom of her wardrobe until she died in 2015, aged 97.