Service Number 127493

207 Squadron Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Bernard Johnson was born in 1916, the son of  Daniel Albert and Maud Elizabeth Johnson, née Adams , of Heathland Avenue, Castle Bromwich. In 1939 he married Marjorie Kathleen Knowles, of King’s Heath, Birmingham.

During WW2 he enlisted with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserves and was posted to the 207 Squadron.

Operation Hamburg

The Allied bombing of Hamburg during World War II included numerous attacks on civilians and civic infrastructure. As a large city and industrial centre, Hamburg’s shipyards, U-boat pens, and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries were attacked throughout the war.

On 3rd March 1943 Bernard took off on a night raid from RAF Langar in Nottinghamshire, as part of a seven man crew in a Avro Lancaster  ED365 intent on attacking the city of Hamburg. 

The plane crashed at Wedel 16 km west of Hamburg Killing all on board.  Bernard along with Warrant Officer William Cain, Flight Sergeant Melville George Delatorre, Sergeant Peter Evison, Sergeant Raymond Walter Ernest Holley, Sergeant Lewis Reginald Thompson and William Victor Wallace were  buried on 10th March in the  Hamburg Cemetery in the Ohlsdorf district of the city.