One of the
youngest casualties from Filey to die during the conflict, Wallace’s role on
his aircraft gives a clue as to his fate.
Having joined the Royal Air Force when he was conscripted, Wallace
trained as an air gunner and on finishing his course was posted to 97 Squadron
who were based at Woodhall Spa and who were flying Avro Manchester
bombers. This aircraft was a forerunner
to the Lancaster
bombers, and was very similar although it was only a two engined aircraft as
opposed to four.
Lancaster’s
and Manchester’s
had a crew of seven men: a pilot, a bomb aimer, a navigator, a flight engineer,
a wireless operator and two gunners (in the tail and one in the turret). These two gunners were responsible for
keeping an eye out for enemy aircraft and as soon as was possible to defend
their plane against the threat. This
made them a primary target for attacking fighter pilots who would try to ‘take
out’ the gunners before they could try to do the same to the fighter; as a
consequence the death toll for gunners was higher than for any other member of
an RAF bomber crew. The mid-section
turret gunner was in a way protected by their position on the aircraft, but the
tail gunner was at the very rear of the plane fuselage, making it very exposed
to enemy attack.
If, as could be the case with
Wallace’s death, a fighter were to unsuccessfully attack a bomber, they might
still be able to shoot off the tail gunner’s turret causing the tail gunner to
fall to his doom. Wallace is the only
RAF burial in Fureby cemetery, Denmark
perhaps indicating that his tail turret met with such a fate. The night of his death was the night of one
of many raids over the German cities of Hanover, Berlin, Hamburg and Cuxhaven;
their return route would have crossed Denmark and been one of the times that
they were most exposed to enemy fighter attacks. There is also another unidentified burial
cemetery, perhaps another of Wallace’s crew but who will now never be named.
Wallace was the son of Thomas and
Rebecca Hannigan of Filey.
