padhist: Thanks for the memoirs, glad to have them in print for future PPRuners to marvel at.
For what it may be worth, hopefully your recollections of Jimmy Connors and Pat Downey may be "misremembered" as I cannot find any matching CWGC entries for a J Connors or P Downey. In fact, few Connors or Downeys, so they may have "gone into the bag" rather than "for a Burton" (unless you have changed the names)......
Similarly, although you may not have met Chas again, it looks as if he also survived the War.
Cliff, your inimitable fortitude shows through yet again. May 2012 see you complete all you wish for. My thoughts are with you and your family.
kookabat: FWIW, If the letters are from Gilbert Pate, his pilot was the only survivor of the 12 bombers lost on the Lille Operation. Bomber Command lost 83 dead with only S/L Smith surviving after being blown clear when the Lanc exploded. If there can be any comfort in it, Gilbert and the rest of his crew are tended by the local people at Lezennes.
If they are from F/Sgt Allen, then his remains were not specifically identified and he is commemorated at Runnymede.
If from George Dann, he is in Foret sur Marque with 5 of his crew. Theirs was an all RAAF crew.
I'm sure you already have far more info, but for other followers of the thread, it may bring it into sharper focus. In fact Bomber Command lost 26 aircraft that night, not just the 11 or 12 lost at Lille.
Yet the survivors (and replacements) continued to take to the skies, night after night knowing that they were the principle way of slowing the German war machine.