The featured image on this post is of battle damage to Y-York (or Y-Yorker), Ernest Deverill’s aircraft on the Augsburg operation of 17 April 1942. Y-York took a terrible pounding. The laconic report on the aircraft’s battle damage given by Ernest and the crew once they had got safely back to base was:
Very heavy flak and light predicted flak and S.A. tracer. Aircraft caught fire on starboard side of fuselage and bomb bay but was extinguished by the efforts of the Wireless Operator and Mid Gunner. Both mid and rear turrets u/s from target. Port outer engine was u/s and feathered on leaving but was restarted before reaching coast.
This photograph and many others appear in our publication: ERNEST DEVERILL – “A KNIGHT OF THE AIR”, which is a brief biography of the outstanding pilot who won the DFM, the DFC twice, and the Air Force Cross.
To buy it or the companion booklet, THE MASS RAF FUNERALS AT CAMBRIDGE, 22 DECEMBER 1943, see Black Thursday Booklets