Jack Davidson, a 35 Squadron wireless operator/air gunner, owed his life to the selfless actions of his crewmates …

The night of 29/30 May 1943 was a difficult one for 35 Squadron, one of the founding squadrons within Pathfinder Force. Of the 21 aircraft that set out from Graveley to attack Wuppertal, four failed to return, including the Halifax of Squadron Leader Peter Johnston DFC, one of the deputy Flight Commanders. Within the other aircraft, two survived from the crew of Canadian Warrant Officer James Lee, and five from the Halifax flown by Sergeant Sargent. From the fourth aircraft there was only one survivor: the wireless operator/air gunner Sergeant Jack Davidson. And the fact he survived at all was down to the selfless actions of others.

John ‘Jack’ Davidson, a 32-year-old Glaswegian, had been a railway clerk before the war who volunteered for training as RAF aircrew in the summer of 1940. After the usual medical and the inevitable wait, he was selected for training as a wireless operator/air gunner, passing through various Signals and Bombing & Gunnery Schools, and initially being rated ‘Above Average’ as an air gunner.

It was not until October 1942 that he was posted to 20 Operational Training Unit (20 OTU) and crewed up with Sergeant (later Flight Sergeant) Harry George. In progressing to a Heavy Conversion Unit (1658 HCU), however, there was a parting of the waves, and after flying with a number of different captains Jack was ultimately partnered with a new skipper, 25-year-old Ronald Hoos. Hoos, a flying officer, was the only commissioned man in what was now a seven-man crew that comprised Jack, navigator John ‘Ken’ Kennedy (22), air bomber Ronald Hodge (20), Alex Tannock (20) the mid upper gunner, Alex Taylor (22), the rear gunner, and 25-year-old flight engineer Ernest Bell.

Jack Davidson, left on back row,; Ronald Hoos, centre of front row

Pathfinders welcomed into their ranks not only experienced aircrew, but also a small number of those who had excelled in training. The Hoos crew was one of those few. They volunteered for the PFF, and were selected, arriving at Graveley in April 1943 and being posted to ‘A’ Flight under the command of acting Squadron Leader Eric Franklin DFC AFC. The squadron commander was Wing Commander Basil Robinson DSO, DFC, AFC, and the squadron personnel at that time included some of the Pathfinder ‘greats’ including ‘Dixie’ Dean (who soon after took over from Robinson), Keith Creswell, ‘Bill’ Deacon and Alex Cranswick, to whom Donald Bennett would later dedicate his autobiography.

On a quick note, Basil ‘Robbie’ Robinson was one of the most remarkable of all Bomber Command COs. Fred Maltas, an air gunner and contemporary of Jack’s, told the author:

He was a tremendous character and a real stickler; you had to measure up, or you were off. If there was a dance, he would come in, kick the pianist off and play it himself, using an Aldis lamp as the spotlight.

It didn’t matter who you were, he would buy the humblest erk a beer.

The first operation to the Ruhr

As the ‘new boys’, the Hoos crew were not entrusted with marking duties until they had more experience of operations. As such, they flew their first operation on the night of 26 April as part of Main Force, a raid on Duisberg in the Ruhr. The raid passed without incident, all the 35 Squadron aircraft returning to base. They went to Duisberg again on 12/13 May and 15 minutes short of the target suffered an engine failure. A Halifax was more than capable of flying on three, so Hoos continued to the target and completed the operation without further incident. Pathfinders had something of a tough time of it, losing two crews from 156 Squadron (including one flown by Squadron Leader Lighton Verdon Roe DFC – son of the famous aircraft designer and manufacturer) and one each from 83 Squadron (Flight Lieutenant Leslie Rickinson DFC) and 35 Squadron (the Canadian Flight Lieutenant Julian Sale who successfully evaded capture).

The Hoos crew went to Bochum for their third trip, their aircraft being hit by flak on the way out and again losing an engine (the starboard inner) but returning safely to base. They were lucky, having been ‘coned’ by searchlights for 20 minutes while still only at 11,000ft.

A Lancaster from 83 Squadron was lost, as well as a Halifax from 405 Squadron detailed for another target.

The crew’s bad luck in losing engines continued on a return visit to Bochum on the night of 23/24 May, although this time – and with their navigational aids (Gee and H2S) also unserviceable – discretion proved the better part of valour and the op was aborted. Flying Officer Alain Harvey, an Australian skipper with 35 Squadron, was missing; he had only been on the squadron a month.

Shot down by a nightfighter ace

For their fifth operation the Hoos crew went to Essen, and while they returned after a successful trip, 35 Squadron lost an NCO pilot, Richard Ayres, and three other PFF squadrons suffered losses. For their sixth and what was to prove Jack’s final operation, they were briefed as a ‘fire raiser’ for Wuppertal, carrying a bomb bay primarily full of incendiaries. Having successfully bombed the target, they were on the homeward leg when they were intercepted and shot down by one of the leading German Luftwaffe ‘Experten’, Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer. Jack was the only survivor and later reported that he had been ‘thrown out’.

Hoos had given the order to bale out, but Jack was unable to reach his parachute, having been wounded in the leg. Other members of the crew managed to retrieve it for him, clip it on, and drag him to the forward escape hatch to push him out, but in doing so sacrificed their own lives. They were all killed as the Halifax crashed into farmland a short distance from where Jack eventually landed.

Jack came down near Zoutleeuw in Belgium, with burns to his face and several debilitating wounds to his right leg. He also had a broken arm. His parachute canopy had been badly burned, and it was a miracle that it had not gone up like a Roman candle. In no condition to evade, he was discovered by a local farmer who found Jack a doctor. When it was decided that Jack’s injuries needed hospital treatment, they had no choice other than to hand him over to the authorities.

In England, the dreaded ‘missing’ telegrams were soon despatched, followed by a letter from the newly appointed squadron CO, Wing Commander ‘Dixie’ Dean (Robinson had been promoted group captain to take over the station). Addresses and contact details of the relatives of the other men within Jack’s crew were exchanged, which led to a flurry of correspondence between the hopeful families. In one, Jean, Jack’s wife, wrote to the parents of the mid upper gunner: ‘Ian, our boy of four years, is drawing planes to his daddy. Ian does not really understand.’

In another, Jean told the parents of the rear gunner Alex Taylor: ‘Jack has said to me often, Jean – do not worry, as long as Alex is in our plane we will get through.’

On hearing of the crew’s loss, Harry George, the NCO who had been Jack’s first skipper, wrote: ‘

It has been a big blow to me. I’ve taken it pretty hard, for after all they were my first crew: Alex, Jack, Ronnie and Ken. They were grand lads and they thought a lot of me. Whatever possessed them to go on to the PFF beats me. I’m convinced if they had only stopped with me we would have completed a tour.

Refusing to believe her husband was dead

Jean, who was only weeks away from giving birth to their second child, a daughter (Elizabeth), refused to believe her husband was dead and her instinct proved to be well-founded. Seven weeks later the postman came running up the stairs to her second storey maisonette, shouting ‘He’s alive’. Confirmation came in the form of a printed card from Dulag Luft which said that he was ‘being treated well’. He wrote later with more detail about the night they were shot down, and that his left arm was encased in plaster. He was in a private ward in hospital, with an American airman for company.

At Dulag Luft, Jack was processed before being sent to Stalag Luft 6 near Heydekrug and given the prison number 112. His wounds and injuries were soon mended, and he settled into prison life, regularly urging his wife in his allocated letters home to send more cigarettes. He was frustrated that some of his letters and appeals were not getting through, especially after being chastised by Jean for not writing often enough. One letter he was especially proud to receive was from the Irvin Parachute Company, confirming his membership of the Caterpillar Club awarded to all those whose lives had been saved by ‘hitting the silk’.

When the camp was evacuated in the summer of 1944 Jack was moved to Stalag 357 at Thorn in Poland, and soon after to Fallingbostel, from where he was liberated on 16 April 1945. He arrived back in the UK on 28 April and planned to take the train to Glasgow two days later but actually arrived on 1 May. Within a week, the war in Europe was over, and after being demobbed, Jack returned to working for the railways.

Remembering the act of a brave crew

In 2025, the community of Zoutleeuw where the aircraft crashed contacted relatives of the crew and hosted an act of remembrance over the weekend of 27/28 September 2025. Two original eye-witnesses to the crash, Louis and Maurice Velkeneers, attended the memorial dedication service. The bodies of the crew were originally buried in temporary graves but were exhumed and now rest in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery in Heverlee. A monument to the fallen men was paid for by the Zoutleeuw community and erected near the crash site.

Jack’s RAF tunic (he was a warrant officer by the war’s end) and other wartime memorabilia and correspondence is proudly shared between the Pathfinder Museum within the RAF Wyton Heritage Centre, and The RAF Pathfinders Archive housed within the Museum.

SEAN FEAST