Jimmy Marks is a legend in the annals of Bomber Command. Operational from the very beginning of the war, he survived two tours on Whitleys, in 1940-41, before taking command of 35 Squadron in March 1942.

Long before 35 Squadron became a founding member of Pathfinder Force, Jimmy has already experimented with the concept of target marking. For an attack on Rotterdam in his Whitley days, he’d suggested that if they made a time and distance run from Rotterdam to the target, and then all dropped a flare, the aircraft that followed would be assured of accurate bombing. Hamish Mahaddie, himself of Pathfinding legend, believed this was the first ever coordinated attempt to find and mark a target in such a manner.

Rated ‘exceptional’ as a heavy bomber pilot, Jimmy died on the night of 19/20 September 1942 during an attack on Saarbrücken. What happened that night is recounted by the surviving flight engineer, Bill Higgs:

When we neared the target, the luck went all the Germans’ way. Thick mist appeared and when the navigator thought we were near the target, the skipper descended to 2,000ft and we carried out a square search for an hour. At this point I told the skipper that if we had to carry our bomb load home, we were going to have leave soon or there wouldn’t be enough fuel.

At 00.30 I was calculating our fuel consumption when there was a sudden and tremendous explosion in the port wing. I stood up and looked out to see that our number five and six fuel tanks were on fire. The flames were going back beyond the rear turret. The aircraft dived and I hit the roof. We then pulled out of the dive and I crashed to the floor. I could see the skipper talking into his microphone but I could hear nothing through the intercom.

Realising that he could not maintain control of the Halifax for long, Jimmy pointed to the escape hatch. Bill clipped on his parachute:

I looked at the opening and the small area of metal around it. I sat on the edge of the hatch and tried to drop through. Unfortunately, the adjusting buckles on my parachute harness just happened to stick out above my shoulders and caught in the rim of the hatch. So there I was – half in, half out – stuck! Then I fell, and I remember the tail wheel making a dreadful noise as I flashed past it. My parachute opened with a sharp ‘crack’ as soon as I pulled the ripcord and I breathed a sigh of relief. Shortly afterwards dear old ‘L’ hit the ground and exploded in a great mass of flames.

The aircraft crashed at Blesme, 11km east of Vitry-le-François, with Jimmy Marks still at the controls. Alan Child and Richard Leith Hay Clark – navigator and rear gunner respectively – were killed with him. Jimmy was only 24.

Shortly after his death Donald Bennett wrote to Jimmy’s parents enclosing a Pathfinder eagle badge and award certificate dated 19 September, the day he went missing. Bennett was in no doubt of Jimmy’s qualities, describing him as ‘one of the finest officers in the Service’.

SEAN FEAST

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WING COMMANDER JAMES HARDY MARKS, CO of 35 Squadron, Path Finder Force, died 19 September 1942, buried at Choloy War Cemetery in France.

CREW of Halifax W7657, flying from Graveley, on 19 September 1942:

• W/Cdr J H Marks DSO DFC – killed
• F/Sgt W G Higgs – POW
• F/Lt A J Child DFC – killed
• F/Lt N H Wright RAAF – POW
• P/O R J L Sawyers – POW
• P/O R L Leith-Hay-Clark – killed

This fine memorial to Jimmy Marks, Alan Child and Richard Leith-Hay-Clark was placed at the crash site in modern times.

Eye-witness to the loss of the aircraft, Bill Higgs