Alfred Laurence Heath was born in Wolverhampton to Walter Alfred Heath and Madeline (nee Woolman) on 15th March 1911.

He joined the RAF and trained as a bomb aimer. On 20th May 1943, Alfred was promoted to Pilot Officer and again on 20th November, to Flying Officer.

In the Spring of 1945 near the port of Swinemunde on the Baltic coast, the German pocket battleship Lutzow was moored in the Keil Canal and being used as a gun platform to bombard the approaching Red Army.

617 Squadron was tasked with destroying the battleship and on 16th April 1945, 18 Lancasters, led by Sqn Ldr Powell in Lancaster NG228, took off from RAF Woodhall Spa. They were escorted by 33 Mustangs from 442 and 611 Squadrons from the 133 Fighter Wing of the Polish Air Force.

Some of Sqn Ldr Powell’s regular crew were not available, so some replacements were hurriedly reassigned. The rest of the crew comprised: Flight engineer: Flt Sgt Henry William Felton DFM Navigator: Flt Lt Michael Terence Clarke DFC Wireless operator: Plt Off Kenneth Arthur John Hewitt Mid-upper gunner: Flt Sgt William Knight. Rear gunner: Flg Off James Watson

This was the third mission against the Lutzow -- the previous two had been unsuccessful due to poor weather conditions. But this time, at 17.00, the flight arrived at the target unscathed, scoring hits with two 1000lb bombs and a near miss from one of the Tallboys. The Lutzow suffered severe damage and 20 of her crew were killed. However, she only sank about 10ft to the bed of the canal so many of her gun batteries were still functioning and for some time, continued to harass the Russians.

Even though the war was obviously nearing its end, there was heavy flak, both at the approach to the target and over the canal itself. Lancaster NG228 was hit and crashed in flames in Karsibor Woods on the outskirts of Swinemunde, killing the whole crew. It was the last loss of aircrew from 617 Squadron in the Second World War.

There were rumours at the time that some of the crew survived the crash but were shot while trying to escape from the forest. They were initially buried in a nearby graveyard but when the area once again came under Polish control after the war (it is now called Świnoujście), the bodies were exhumed in 1949 and reburied in the Poznan (Old Garrison) Cemetery.

After the crash, local people marked the site with one of the Lancaster’s tail fins and after the war, the aircraft was excavated by the Polish Air Force and in 1998, the fin refurbished and rededicated.