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ARCHIVE FEATURE: Marlborough and the Dambusters Raid
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In the late evening of the 16th May 1943 at R.A.F. Scampton, a total of 19 Lancasters from 617 Squadron took off to undertake this famous mission. Two of these aircraft were piloted by Old Marlburians. They were David MALTBY (B3 May 1934 until July 1936) and John Vere HOPGOOD (C1 September 1935 until July 1939), the former having had the responsibility of teaching his commanding officer, Guy Gibson, how to fly Lancasters ! They were aged 23 and 21, repectively. Both were in the first wave of planes to attack the Moehne Dam.
John Hopgood, piloting the second plane( AJ-M for Mother) encountered massive flak as he approached the Dam. With his Lancaster seriously ablaze before his bomb could be dropped, it was unsurprising that the latter bounced over the Dam wall. Realising that M for Mother was doomed, Hopgood strove to gain enough height to allow his crew some chance of baling out successfully. |
| David Maltby (B3 1934-36) with Guy Gibson |
Two managed to do so, later becoming POWs at Stalag luft 3, while the other five crew members all died when their aircraft crashed. The two crew members who survived reckoned that they owed their lives to Hopgood`s heroism and after the War was over one of them was to name his two children in Hopgood`s honour (a son called Vere and a daughter called Shere – the name of Hopgood`s home village in Surrey!).
AJ-J for Johnny, piloted by David Maltby, was the fifth Lancaster to make its bombing run and, aided by several accompanying planes trying to draw flak away from it, it was successful in breaching the Dam. Returning to R.A.F. Scampton, AJ-J for Johnny touched down with all its crew at 3.11am, just under 6 hours after it had taken off.
In the subsequent investiture at Buckingham Palace at which Wing Commander Guy Gibson received his V.C., David Maltby was given a D.S.O. to add to his D.F.C..
Sadly, Maltby was not to survive the War for he and his crew were lost over the North Sea in the early hours of 15th September 1943 during a raid on the Dortmund-Ems canal.
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