Remembering Today Casualty Sergeant (Flight Engineer) RYAN, JAMES JOSEPH Service Number 614624 Died 14/05/1943 Aged 22 149 Sqdn. Royal Air Force Son of Leonard and Mary Agnes Ryan, of Birch Vale, Derbyshire. Buried at RHEINBERG WAR CEMETERY Location: Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Number of casualties: 3183 Cemetery/memorial reference: Coll. grave 2. G. 1-12.
There's a page at Aircrew Remembered relating the loss of this 149 Sqdn Stirling (BK726, captain P/O Forsyth, RCAF) and all its crew, average age 21; it was one of two 149 a/c shot down with no survivors that night.
1939 REGISTER TRANSCRIPTION 22 Spinnerbottom, New Mills U.D., Derbyshire NAME DOB OCCUPATION Leonard Ryan 25 Jul 1900 Calico Printers Filter Mary Agnes Ryan 13 May 1901 Unpaid Domestic Duties Sorry, this record is officially closed. Sorry, this record is officially closed.
Good question. There were three Canadians in the crew, and the report suggests that the man who temporarily survived the crash was not the pilot; if that is the case (though it's not conclusive, the pilot still in his position when his a/c crashed is an all-too-familiar scenario), then it would be either the navigator or the air bomber. I wonder if there are pictures anywhere which might help? J17672 P/O Harold Forsyth (pilot), aged 20 R93881 F/Sgt Donald McDonald (navigator), aged 25 R108356 W/O Yvon Guepin (A/Bmbr), aged 21 NB I'm giving the ranks as per Aircrew Remembered; the crash documentation has them as P/O, Sgt and Sgt, respectively.