The Lancaster bomber came down at the back of a monastery near a boy’s orphanage in Kerkrade, near the Netherlands and German border, on December 29, 1943.

About 40 boys were asleep in the orphanage that night and locals believe either the skill of the pilot or an act of god saw no-one hurt when the plane crashed metres from the monastery.

Fast forward almost 70 years and one man who lives next to the field where that plane crashed has made it his life’s mission to make the families of the crew aware just how grateful the people of Kerkrade remain to these men who helped liberate their country.

Peter Heckmanns has been searching for relatives of Flight Sergeant Squires but has so far had no luck.

Peter lives next to the field where the Lancaster crashed.

This week, to coincide with Anzac Day, his friends Leo and Maria Wings from Melbourne, were in Inverell hoping to locate the family of Max Squires.

When they spoke to The Inverell Times they had not had any luck finding relatives. But they did have a great story to reveal about the history of the Lancaster crew.

On September 25, 2010 Kerkrade dedicated a monument to the crew of Lancaster III JB-607, AR-N Leader.

A Lancaster Mark III bomber operated with seven crewmembers and during World War II and commanding JB-607 was 30-year-old RAAF Pilot Officer Stanley James Ireland.

Ireland’s nephew Steven Ireland met Leo on Tuesday at the Inverell RSM Club.

The Lancaster’s second crewmember was the 29-year-old Navigator RAF Pilot Officer Ambrose Edward Blight and its bomb aimer was 22-year-old RAAF Flight Sergeant Frank John Seery.

Wireless operator/gunner, 22-year-old RAF Sergeant Cyril Seddon, flight engineer 19-year-old RAF Sergeant William Albert Squire, mid-upper gunner 21-year-old RAF Sergeant Reginald James Poulter and Flight Sergeant Maxwell Squires from Inverell was the crew’s 20-year-old tail gunner.

Stan Ireland’s crew flew their first mission on August 22, 1943.

Bomber Command losses were more than 50 per cent and the average life expectancy of a crew was measured at about eight missions.

They were no doubt consider-ed combat veterans by the night of their 21st mission.

If others regarded them so then they had earned it, as Navigator Ambrose Blight’s letters home to his wife, Patricia, revealed.

In one he tells her about the raid on Munich on the night of September 30, 1943.

“…as we approached it (the target) we were coned by searchlights and had to do very violent evasive action…after three or four minutes we were out of them… to be caught in searchlights, worse still to be coned, and particularly over the target is fatal…,” Ambrose wrote.

“We could have dropped our bombs at random and scrammed, but no – we straightened up for our bombing run and as we did so, we were attacked by a fighter who fired a burst into us before we knew anything, we felt the hit, the plane shuddered, and we smelt the acid smell of the smoke and cordite in our nostrils.

“He fired another burst at us and our rear gunner replied, and may possibly have scored some hits.

“He did not hit us with his second burst as we…went into a steep dive of several thousand feet.”

Ambrose was still picking up maps and instruments 10 minutes later.

“…one engine had been hit and was ‘feathered’…our mid-upper turret was hit and put out of action, bullet passing in between the guns and narrowly missing Reg.

“All he had was a tiny bit of Perspex in the corner of his eye,” Ambrose wrote.

“The controls were affected, the rudder trim being useless, and we lurched all over the place for a while, as we had lost one engine our speed was greatly reduced, and we lost height, at one time we grabbed our parachutes and were ready in case of an emergency.

“In the strife, my parachute was released was released somehow, so if we had to jump, I would have had a bit of a struggle, but I’m sure I would have managed somehow.”

Ambrose tells Patricia how Stan deserves recognition for their eventual safe landing but what he did not tell Patricia appears in Stan Ireland’s flight log for the night of the raid. It includes the elevators being ‘shot away’, also ‘cannon holes in the fuselage’, ‘one motor damaged’ and ‘fire in bomb bay’!

On December 29, 1943, 700 aircraft took part on a raid on Berlin and Stan’s Crew took off from Binbrook at 5.03pm.

No doubt a few seconds after Frank Seery’s thumb pressed the bomb release button he gave Stan the usual ‘bombs gone!’ and Ambrose told Stan the course that would take the big Lancaster home, across the German/Netherlands border where their luck finally ran out.

At 10pm a German Messerschmitt BF-110G night fighter found them.

“The quiet of our night was rudely shattered by what appeared to be a single shot which hit the nose of our plane. Stan called out ‘It's a fighter!’ and dived the plane to port,” Frank Seery wrote.

“While in that dive we were hit by a massive fusillade of shells. Four of the crew were killed immediately, the four engines destroyed and the plane set ablaze. “Somehow Stan righted the plane, which was now on a southerly course.”

With Patricia’s beloved Ambrose, the wireless operator, mid-upper and tail gunner all dead, the plane burning around them, it was time for the others to bail out.

“As I ditched the escape hatch, the slipstream caught and twisted it, jamming it in the hatch opening,” Frank said.”

“My kicking of the hatch proved futile, until I got the flight engineer to join me. A couple of united kicks and the hatch flew out, followed rapidly by me, as the flight engineer raced back to collect the pilot.”

But time ran out for the Stan and Bill.

“The aircraft exploded a few seconds after my exit. It was a tragedy that but for the hold-up with the hatch, the three of us could possibly have escaped,” Frank said.

“When I landed in Holland my great hope was that Stan and Bill were blown clear in the explosion, but, unfortunately, they were both killed by it.”

Frank Seery was captured and remained a POW for the remainder of the war.

Leo and Steven are searching for relatives of Maxwell Hope Squires, or anyone who may have any information about him.

“We know he was born in 1923, his sister’s name was Barbara and she married John Bray. He had a brother called Allan who was better known as ‘Ted’, another brother who married Yvonne White and a third brother named Leonard,” said Steven.

Max Squires relatives are among the last left for the townspeople of Kerkrade to locate and perhaps he would have found a certain ironic humour in that too, because the tail gunner was always last to get anywhere.