Sydney Letts

With thanks to Aircrewremembered.com for additional information and use of images.

Not all of the people named on the British Normandy Memorial died on French soil or in French waters.

31 year old Pilot Officer Sydney Letts from Leicester was the pilot of Lancaster Mk.III LM616, 115 Squadron, Royal Air Force.

Here is Pilot Officer Letts (looking over Princess Elizabeth's left shoulder) with some of the personnel from 115 Squadron during a visit by the King, the Queen and Princess Elizabeth on 5 July 1944.

On 18 July 1944, 25 Lancasters from 115 Squadron were part of a considerable force of more than 900 aircraft tasked with bombing German units across Normandy. The mission was in support of armoured units of the British Second Army who were attacking the German 21st Panzer Division and 16th Luftwaffe Field Division at the start of the ‘Operation Goodwood’ offensive.

115 Squadron’s objective was a wood at Émiéville, Calvados, east of Caen. Pilot Officer Letts and his crew were flying in their 10th operation. They took off at 04:20 and successfully completed their sortie. The English countryside below them was shrouded in early morning mist as they headed back to their base at RAF Witchford in Cambridgeshire.

Suddenly the Lancaster got into difficulty. It is not known if it suffered a mechanical fault, or if it had been hit by enemy fire during the bombing raid. The Lancaster was last seen circling over the village of Great Offley in Hertfordshire, at around 7am. Eye witnesses on the ground reported that an engine appeared to have been on fire.

It may have been that Pilot Officer Letts was looking for somewhere to make an emergency landing.

Not long after the Lancaster appeared in the skies above Great Offley, it lost altitude and clipped some trees not far from West End Farm, the momentum causing the aircraft to career across a field and straight into the farmhouse, all but obliterating it.

Within minutes, the aircraft’s fuel tanks exploded, engulfing the farmhouse in flames, which quickly spread to other farm buildings. George Handley and his two sons were in the cow shed for milking at the time of the crash and were lucky to survive.

Villagers rushed to help and the National Fire Service tried to control the blaze, but tragically all crew on board and three members of the Handley family,  67 year old Alice Handley and her two daughters, Mary Agnes, who was 36 and Elsie who was 28, all died in the inferno. Elsie, who was serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), had only just arrived home on leave for a few hours from the gun site where she was stationed at.

Normandy Memorial Trust - Additional Information

Operation Goodwood took place between 18-19 July 1944 with units of the British VIII Corps. The operation was planned to open up the country to the east of Caen which would then achieve a breakout from the bridgehead where Allied forces were being held up. Advances were made but they did not achieve the final objectives.