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G T M Caines | W. O. G. T. M. Caines Volunteered and joined the RAF at age 18 and was called up on 4th December 1940. He subsequently joined 9 Squadron and after 7 Operational sorties was granted four days compassionate leave to visit his wife, who had just given birth to a son in a temporary maternity hospital in Taunton. He returned to find his crew reported missing. He carried on flying with 9 Squadron as a spare Wop but after 13 ops crewed up with F/O Manning who had lost his Wop after five trips. On 23rd March 1944, on his twenty-fifth trip, in Lancaster LM430, WS-B, on the way home from Frankfurt they were hit in the bomb bay by a fighter. Badly on fire and in a steep dive they blew up. The aircraft broke her back and Caines was thrown clear of the wreckage, landing in a little village called Lembeque, near Brussels. He finished the war in captivity and was repatriated a week or so before VE Day. Unfortunately he was the only one to survive the crash. |
