Every year at this time we remember the Pathfinder crews lost due to fog and low cloud on Black Thursday, 16/17 December 1943. The Pathfinder dead for fog-related crashes were two from 83 Squadron, six from 156 Squadron, fourteen from 405 Squadron, and twenty-eight from 97 Squadron, fifty men in all.

The survivors of these crashes were sometimes critically injured, but there were also those who suffered only minor abrasions and shock. The severity of the shock cannot be underestimated as an account by a young Canadian shows us. READ MORE …