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Flight Lieutenant William Astell DFC, RAFVR, 617 Sqdn. - 'Death of a Dambuster'
30/01/2024
Second World War Air Force United Kingdom
By MALCOLM PEEL

United Kingdom

Flight Lieutenant William Astell
2036612

William (Bill) Astell was born to Godfrey Grant Astell and Margery “Minnie” Helen (nee March-Philips) in Knutsford, Cheshire on 1st April 1920. During and after his time at Bradfield College and always looking for adventure, he had crossed the Atlantic by cargo boat, climbed in the Dolomites, and spent three months at Leipzig University.

With war imminent, he first enlisted in the Navy, but then transferred to the RAFVR in July 1939 and by April 1940, he had been selected for pilot training in Rhodesia. After qualifying as a pilot, Bill had hoped to get back to the UK but found himself sent to another training unit before being posted to a Wellington squadron in Malta. There he contracted typhoid, so he didn’t fly on active service until September 1941, when the squadron had been posted to Egypt.

On 1st December 1941, he was involved in a horrendous flying accident when another aircraft cut in ahead of him while he was landing, and he fractured his skull and suffered severe burns to his back. Back on operations by the summer, Bill was shot down over the Western Desert and crash-landed behind enemy lines. He managed to evade capture and got back to his base some five days later when he was awarded the DFC.

He eventually returned to England in September 1942 and was destined to become a flying instructor, but managed to get trained to fly Lancasters and was then posted to 57 Sqn at RAF Scampton, arriving in January 1943.

His rather unusual career meant that at this point he had no crew, but he was allocated an operationally-ready crew, flying their first raid to Lorient in France on 13th February 1943. On 25th March, the whole of 57 Squadron’s ‘C’ Flight was transferred to a new squadron for a “special operation” and as they were already at Scampton, this didn’t involve too much disruption.

Bill and his crew were tasked with taking photographs of all the major lakes in England, Scotland, and Wales (which may have given them a clue as to the nature of the “special operation”) and they also flew the first of the “Type 464 Provisioning” Lancasters which were being specially modified to carry the “bouncing bomb”.

On 14th May, those captains who had never made a will were instructed to do so, Bill's being witnessed by Robert Barlow and Henry Maudslay. None of them would return from the raid.

On the night of the raid, Bill took off at 21.59 in the final trio of the first wave and everything seemed to go well until they crossed the Rhine when Bill was lagging slightly behind the other two aircraft, seeming to hesitate as though not sure of a turning point. Shortly afterward, they ran into unexpected light flak which, although they managed to fly through, badly damaged the aircraft, setting it on fire. A line of HT cables lay in the path of the attacking force and, unable to maintain height, Bill hit one of the pylons and AJ-B crashed in flames.

The Upkeep mine exploded about ninety seconds later, shattering windows in surrounding farm buildings some 300 yards away. The bodies of the crew were taken to Borken, north of Essen, and buried in the City Cemetery and after the war, they were all reinterred together in the Reichswald Forest CWGC Cemetery. Source:

Source: https://dambustersblog.com/2013/11/09/dambuster-of-the-day-no-50-william-astell/ 

AJ-B crashed in the field behind the memorial. Copyright: Malcolm Peel
Copyright: Malcolm Peel
Reichswald Forest CWGC Cemetery Copyright: Malcolm Peel
Copyright: Malcolm Peel