Name
Eric Robert Alston
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
25/04/1944
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Flying Officer
48871
Royal Air Force
61 Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LYON (LA DOUA) FRENCH NATIONAL CEMETERY
Row F. Grave 2.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
At an early age he moved from Essex to Bassingbourn near Royston in Hertfordshire and the airfield there led to his interest in aviation. He was an enthusiastic hockey and tennis player and later played in representative matches for the RAF.
He joined the RAF. in 1928 and, after eight years’ service in India, was commissioned at the beginning of World War II. His Service Number was 48871 and for the last two years of his life he was an Air Gunner and took part in ten operational sorties.
He was killed in action with the rest of the crew in Lancaster III LM359 QR-B of 61 Squadron. The aircraft had taken off from Skellingthorpe at 20.55hrs as part of a force of 260 aircraft detailed to attack Munich. The German defensive fighters and anti-aircraft fire were intense, and the Lancaster crashed and exploded in a field on the farm called Petit Bordey occupied by M. Maitret near the village of La Chapelle-Thecle 9kms southwest of Louhans in the vicinity of Lyons in France.
When writing to Mrs Alston, the Wing Commander of her husband's Squadron wrote "It may be some consolation to you to know that we are sure that your husband died doing his duty to the utmost and that he gave his life fearlessly in the fine cause of freedom for which we are all fighting".
A ceremony has been held at a memorial near the site of the crash every year since the end of the war. The memorial stone at the site reads "A la memoire de six aviateurs anglais et en souvenir de l'incendie du Petit Bordey lors de la chute d'un bombardier de la Royal Air Force le 24 Avril 1944". “Pilot Officer C.W.J. Newman, Flying Officer E.R Alston, Serjeant R.C.H Jones, Serjeant R.C. Gardner, Serjeant R.A. Taylor, Serjeant Wells". A fictionalised version of the story appears in a book called ‘Dans L'Ombre des Ailes’ by Jean Boussuge.
The only survivor of the crash was said to have been the Navigator, Cyril Ratner, and that he escaped and made his way back to England. In 1983 he was said to have been living in Canada According to W.R. Chorley in ‘Bomber Command Losses’ his name was Trottner not Ratner and he was a Flight Serjeant
Initially the bodies were buried by the German authorities at the Cemetiere de la Guilliotiere in Lyons, but were later reinterred in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of La Doua War Cemetery in Lyons in Grave 2, Row F.
Eric had married Miss Gwen Ludford on the 30th August 1938, and they had a son, Bernard, who was 4 years old at the time of his father's death. They were living at 62, Hermitage Rd, Hitchin.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Mrs G. Ludford - his wife at that time, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Dans L'Ombre des Ailes’ by Jean Boussuge, ‘Bomber Command Losses - 1944’ by W.R. Chorley
