LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant John Robert KRAEMER
Service No: 401699
Born: Stawell VIC, 23 March 1920
Enlisted in the RAAF: 28 March 1941
Unit: No. 97 Squadron (RAF), RAF Station Bourn
Died: Air Operations: (No. 97 Squadron Lancaster aircraft EE105), Norfolk, 24 August 1943, Aged 23 Years
Buried: Cambridge City Cemetery, Cambridgeshire
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Robert Baldwin Kraemer and Ivy Millicent Kraemer, of Ararat, Victoria, Australia
Roll of Honour: Ararat VIC
Remembered: Panel 125, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
At 2015 hours on the night of 23 August 1943 Lancaster EE105 took off from Bourn detailed to bomb Berlin. When the aircraft was returning to base after the mission it was hit by cannon fire from an intruder aircraft while over the Kings Lynn area at approximately 0300 hours and at a height of 2,000 feet. The starboard engine caught fire but the engine was feathered and the fire extinguished. Flames then came out of the trailing edge and later the leading edge of the wing as well as the bomb aimer’s compartment. As the fire increased, the Captain ordered the crew to bale out. EE105 crashed at Shouldham, 9 miles east of Swaffham, Norfolk. Six of the crew members baled out but the body of Flight Sergeant Kraemer was found in the wreckage of the aircraft.
The crew members of EE105 were:
Pilot Officer L P Armitage (RAF) (Navigator)
Sergeant C Baumber (RAF) (Flight Engineer)
Sergeant C S Chatten (RAF) (Pilot)
Flight Sergeant John Robert Kraemer (401699) (Mid Upper Gunner)
Sergeant W A Reffin (RAF) (Wireless Air Gunner)
Sergeant L V Smith (RAF) (Rear Gunner)
Sergeant W F Standen (RAF) (Air Bomber)
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veterans’ Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/23/19