Francis Anthony Garbas

Died 17 May 1943 in Marbach am Neckar, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Biography

Francis joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was one of the airmen selected to join the top-secret 617 Squadron flying out of RAF Scampton, which had been specially formed on 21 March 1943 for a secret mission under Wing Commander Guy Gibson. There followed rigorous low level night flying exercises while they practiced highly accurate dropping of Barnes Wallis' novel bouncing bomb flying Lancasters. ^[1]

It was only at the pre-flight briefing that the crews learned they were to attack the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany in an effort to cripple the Ruhr industrial area. There are pictures of all the crews at Dambuster Heroes. Francis flew as front gunner in ED864/G call sign AJ-B with pilot William Astell. The other members of the crew were John Kinnear, Abram Garshowitz, Floyd Wile, Donald Hopkinson and Richard Bolitho.^[2]

They took off late on 16 May 1943 in the second flight of the first wave, heading for the Möhne dam. Flying as low as possible to avoid the flak the plane hit high tension wires near Marbech, reared up in the air, burst into flames, and crashed to the ground. Two minutes later the bomb exploded. All on board were killed. ^[3] It was 17 May. Francis Anthony Garbas was buried at Reichswald Forest War Cemetery. ^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Operation Chastise
2. ↑ 617 Squadron crew list
3. ↑ Dambusters.org
4. ↑ Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Francis Anthony Garbas