Lancaster-As

This artwork depicts a wing of an airplane with incorporated parts of a crashed Lancaster.

On 21 June 1944 Lancaster LM580 (squadron code DX-L) departed from its base at East Kirby for a mission to Wesseling in Germany. They were already shot down on the outward flight, but it is never really clear whether they fell victim to a German night fighter or to the flak .

That night no less than six Lancasters of 57 Squadron RAF were lost (two of them over Belgium). No fewer than 23 crew members were killed; in addition, another seven prisoners of war were taken. Six ended up in the sea with their plane and could be picked up by a lifeboat, while five ended up in occupied territory but could escape the hands of the Germans. A black page in the history of 57 Squadron RAF.

There was one fatality among the crew of LM580, pilot P/O Guilyn Penry Guy. When the plane crashed, he shouted "jump or die" to his six crew members, who parachuted from the burning plane. P/O directs the plane away from the village center of As and crashes the bombload onto the train tracks to make them useless for the Germans. P/O Guy is buried in the As cemetery; he rests next to five crewmembers of Wellington T2992 which crashed in the same area in July 1941.

The place where the plane crashed, a stone's throw from the As station, was investigated some time ago by Jean-Pierre Wuyts and numerous small parts of the plane were found. These parts were partly incorporated by artist Julia Berger in the memorial for pilot and crew. On June 19, 2014, a commemoration and floral tribute took place at the cemetery of As. The next day the memorial at the crash site was inaugurated.

Willem Vandenameele