Lost no longer, the NZ pilot

Mervyn Lund of Auckland is in a known grave at last. Photo / Supplied

The Wellington bomber droned homeward over Holland at 3.54am on July 25, 1941. The six crewmen were eyes-peeled for danger - this was where German night fighters waited. They may not have seen the Messerschmitt Bf. 110 before its cannons hammered the bomber into a blazing earthbound comet. Nobody escaped. It exploded on impact.

Now, 70 years on, closure is near for the family of a World War II bomber pilot from Auckland still posted as "missing" by the RAF.

Mervyn Lund, skipper of Wellington R1397, died with his five-man British crew in the early hours of that day, shot down by German night-fighter ace Helmut Lent as they returned from a raid over Emden.

RAF records may still post the six as "missing", but 30 years of work by Dutch researchers has confirmed the crash site as southeast of Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

Robin Hancock, of Matamata, Mervyn's niece, was the first Lund family member to learn his grave had been found. Alison Taylor, a staff member of Auckland War Memorial Museum attempting to locate next-of-kin for the Dutch researchers, telephoned her on April 12 last year. Robin had no idea the research was in progress.

"I actually went quite cold. I told her 'You're two generations too late'. But finding Mervyn's grave means a lot to me. If you're a parent of sons, as I am, the impact can be understood."

Ken Baker, a cousin of Robin but no blood relative to Mervyn, is based in Belgium and contacted the Dutch researchers after the news reached them. He laid a poppy on the gravesite on Anzac Day, less that a fortnight later.

At the time of the bomber going down, the crash site, under military guard, was excavated and incinerated human remains recovered within days. It was wartime, probably a hurried operation, and the count was between four and six bodies. The remains were placed in a single oak coffin obtained from a local hospital. They were buried with military honours at Leeuwarden Northern General Cemetery. A headstone identifies them as four RAF airmen "known unto God".

The names of the six are recorded on the Allied Air Forces Runnymede Memorial, near Windsor. They are: Pilot Officer Mervyn Lund, Sgt Arthur Owen, Sgt John Cox, Sgt Roy Williams, Sgt Alfred Le Poidevin, and Sgt Frank Walker.

Next month, on July 25 - the 70th anniversary of their deaths - their names will be unveiled on a new memorial at the point where their aircraft came down. It will incorporate photographs of the men, supplied by families traced by the researchers. Locating them took two years and a major campaign by British newspaper the Sunday Express.

Family members, including Robin Hancock and Ken Baker, will attend the unveiling. It is being organised by members of the Stichting Missing Airmen Memorial Foundation, a small, passionate group determined that the sacrifice of Allied airmen who helped free their nation should never be forgotten.

World War II delivered a double blow to Mary Ann and Gustaf Lund - they lost two sons to bomber raids over Germany. Mervyn was first to die. His older brother, Clarence, a sergeant pilot, was shot down over Germany on July 29, 1942, a year and four days later. He is buried at the Sage War Cemetery at Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany. At least with Clarence, for family there was closure. With Mervyn there was no closure, until now.

David Lund, of Rotorua, Mervyn's nephew, has spoken of Mary Ann's anguish. As a boy he remembered her bursting into tears whenever Mervyn's name was mentioned.

Both Clarence and Mervyn were special, but perhaps Mervyn had exceptional qualities. He was born in Auckland on April 30, 1918. He attended Newmarket Primary School and Seddon Memorial Technical College. He was head prefect for more than a year, was awarded a Hindley Scholarship and made his mark as a sportsman in boxing, running, cricket and rugby.

In 1936 he was accepted as a clerical cadet in the Pensions Department in Wellington. Perhaps it was boring or maybe he saw the threat ahead - Mervyn applied to join the RNZAF. On April 9, 1940, he signed on "for the duration of war" and applied for training as a pilot.

He won his wings in August, was commissioned in the rank of pilot officer, and was on the troop transport Rangitata headed for the United Kingdom in October.

He was posted to 103 Squadron, Newton, Nottinghamshire. On April 6 he took part in a raid on the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, berthed at Brest. There were many targets in Germany. Records show on one occasion, returning from a raid on Bremen, his Wellington was attacked by four German fighters. One Messerschmitt ME110 was shot down and a JU 88 damaged. The Wellington was damaged but made it home to a belly landing.

In the heart of the agricultural province of Friesland, between the small villages of Wieuwerd and Boazum, is the farming community of Klaeiterp. It is thinly populated, just a few farms. In the early hours of July 25, 1941, the de Vries family was woken by the death scream of a plummeting aircraft. Hendrik de Vries (then 20 years old) was interviewed in the early 1980s: "I got up immediately and looked outside the bedroom window which happened to be on the side where the aircraft had crashed. There I saw a mass of flames which stretched for hundreds of metres into the direction of the farm of one of our neighbours who had a thatched roof."

The burial of the airmen was recorded in the provincial newspaper, the Leeuwarder Courant, on July 31. It translates as: "This afternoon at the Noorderbegraafplats the mortal remains of four English airmen were buried who have been shot down over the province this week. After the coffin was taken to the grave, by six German soldiers, a German army priest spoke. 'The names of these men remain unknown. Their last deed was against our German Fatherland, our women and children, but despite this we take them with military honours to their last resting place. The German soldiers' heart force us to do so, because it can also appreciate the courage of the enemy. We take it that these men also took up arms for their country. Their lives have stopped but the grave is not the end; the end of everything is eternity where there will be no more war'."

But the story was far from finished. Thirty years ago a group of Dutch historians followed up the mystery of the unknown airmen, searching old records and memories

Many continued the detective work through the years. Now Douwe Drijver, treasurer and researcher of the Stichting Missing Airmen Memorial Foundation, and Alexander Tuinhout have pressed it through to solution and resolution.

This week Douwe explained: "It is a fairly long story about how we came to the conclusion (where) the Wellington crashed. Our evidence is based on documents we found in Dutch, British and German archives. We have copies of the combat report of Helmut Lent in which he states that he shot down a Wellington near the village of Boazum. Documents of the RAF give information about the loss of four bombers on the Emden raid. Because three crash sites are known, the conclusion of the Dutch Air Force and our foundation is a very simple one, at least we think so - Lund and his crew perished over Friesland."

The German ace who downed the Wellington has been identified as OberLeutnant Helmut Lent. It was his 19th "kill". He advanced his score to 110 kills and was heavily decorated. He and three crew members were fatally injured in a JU 88 crash on October 7, 1944. Lent was accorded a state funeral.