Crash Lancaster May 13, 1943
In the early night, an Allied Avro Lancaster MK I returned from an aborted mission over Duisburg. The heavy aircraft was easy prey for the German ‘ace’ Heinz Vinke, who had already shot down countless aircraft in his Messerschmitt.
Vinke flew in from Friesland, where he had crashed another Lancaster fifteen minutes earlier. He opened fire again near Eemnes. The bomber of the British RAF 83 Squadron lost burning debris above the houses and gardens of the village and came down at approximately 2.17 am in the arable land just behind the general cemetery. The bombs still on board exploded with great force.
Only Australian navigator Horace Ransome could have left the burning aircraft. He was found at dawn with a broken back. The Germans kept him prisoner of war until the end of the war. The crew also consisted of pilot Leslie Arthur Rickinson, flight engineer David Barclay Bourne, bombardier Thomas Robert Cairns, radio operator William Lionel Gibbs, dorsal turret gunner Horace Plant and tail gunner Stanley Alfred Hathaway. The six are buried at Rusthof in Leusden.
During the bombing of Duisberg that night, 34 of the 572 Allied aircraft did not return. Nineteen of them crashed in the Netherlands.