A North Sea Lancaster mystery: Flying Officer Daniel Thomas

Mystery of Ammanford's lost hero[/h]8:20am Saturday 21st January 2012 in]Mystery of Ammanford's lost hero (From South Wales Guardian)

Flying Officer Daniel Thomas, of Ammanford, was the bomb aimer aboard a Lancaster shot down over the North Sea in June, 1943, yet his name does not appear on the town’s warmemorial.
Guardian editor MIKE LEWIS relates the story of Ammanford’s lost World War Two airman.
IN THE end, only two of the seven bodies were ever recovered.
The Lancaster was returning from a raid over Munster on the night of June 11, 1943, when it was intercepted by a Messerschmitt and shot down into the sea.
The bodies of the pilot, Sqn Ldr James Swift, and rear gunner, Sgt J J Anderson, washed up later on the Dutch coast, but no trace of their five crewmates – who included Flying Officer Daniel Thomas – was ever found.
So who exactly was Ammanford’s lost airman? Do any relatives of Daniel Thomas still live locally? And why has his name been omitted fromthat poignant list adorning the Iscennen Gate at Ammanford Park?
One of the fewclues we have is in the local archive of war dead which lists Daniel Owen Thomas as “the son of William Henry and Ruth Thomas who was lost from 83 (Pathfinders) Squadron”.
The story of his last flight is related in an award-winning new book, Bomber County, written by Daniel Swift, grandson of the pilot who flew Thomas’s plane on that fateful night.
In the book (Penguin, £9.99), Swift seeks to discover what happened, while at the same time trying to understand the men who took part in those dangerous bombing raids, as well as the devastating impact they had on the civilians below.
In examining the life of one pilot, the author also investigates why it is we have tried to forget what was then a new and shocking form of warfare, and why the literature and poetry exploring these terrible losses have not found the recognition they deserve.
References to Flying Officer Thomas – who doubled up as nose gunner as well as bomb aimer on the doomed plane – are frustratingly scarce.
We are told that he and the rest of the crew arrived at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire on April 3, 1943, and Thomas was apparently a former parson – with a fondness for the occasional pint of beer!
In a letter home to his wife on June 1, Sqn Ldr Swift records he is just going out “for a short hard walk”.
He continues: “The Welshman (ex-parson) of my crew has just started out on his hike for the nearest pub about two miles away and Iamgoing to meet him there for a pint before closing time.”
Their two-mile tramp was in vain, however: the pub was closed due to a shortage of beer.
Thomas’s disappointment can easily be imagined. Perhaps at that moment, he found himself wistfully recalling the Cross Inn back home in Ammanford.
Less than two weeks later, the men and their crewmates perished together as they made a desperate attempt to reach the sanctuary of their base.
● Anyone with any information on Flying Officer Thomas can contact Mike Lewis on 01269 592074 or e-mail him at mike.lewis@southwalesguardian.co.uk

 

Some families never gave up the hope that their son might be found alive, despite the likelihood that their hopes were unfounded.
That meant they would not accept responding to CWGC Forms and refusing to add his name to local War Memorials...
"shot down but badly injured, amnesia, crippled and unable to communicate, in a hospital ward "somewhere" and that one day he'll remember and come home..."
Or it could be the family moved away and lost their links to his home town.