Dambuster Raid K W Ken Brown signed WW2 RAF 50th ann cover Rare only 111 issued.. Flown by Lancaster PA474 over the Derwent Dam, numbered on the back with flight details on cachet. Special Scampton 50th ann Dambusters Raid postmark. enneth William Brown was born on 20 August 1920 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. He enlisted in the RCAF in 1941 and was selected for pilot training. He was recommended for fighters but after arriving in England, he was posted to a bomber training unit in Kinloss. There he crewed up with navigator Dudley Heal, bomb aimer Stefan Oancia, wireless operator Herbert Hewstone and gunner Grant McDonald, all of whom would stay with him for much of the rest of his career. Their first active posting was however to Coastal Command, flying Whitleys out of RAF St Eval on Channel patrols. Brown was then selected for heavy bomber training at 1654 Conversion Unit, where one of his instructors was Mick Martin. The low flying specialist was reportedly impressed by his pupil’s abilities in this challenging activity. Brown also formed a complete crew at this unit when engineer Basil Feneron and gunner Don Buntaine joined him. The seven were then posted to 44 Squadron to begin operations on 5 February 1943. On 11 February, Brown flew as second pilot on a raid to Wilhelmshaven in an aircraft captained by Sqn Ldr R G Whitehead DFC. He then had to wait for nearly a month until 9 March to fly his own crew on their first operation, to the tough target of Munich. The trip was a fierce baptism, with their aircraft coned by searchlights which meant Brown had to perform a corkscrew in order to escape. Four more operations followed and then on 27 March they were briefed for their first trip to Berlin. Before they left, Brown was pulled aside for a meeting with the squadron CO, Wg Cdr John Nettleton VC. Because the new squadron had been formed so quickly, there was a shortage of aircraft on which the crews could train. Brown and his crew, however, were relatively lucky and did a low level cross country flight on 31 March, two days after their arrival. Training went on apace for six more weeks and during it the pugnacious Brown had some run-ins with his new CO, Guy Gibson, who he regarded as a staunch disciplinarian. Once, after Brown was accused with being late for a briefing, Gibson made him wash all the windows of the briefing room. But the CO recognised his skills as a pilot, especially at low flying, and demonstrated his playful side by one day pushing him into the water when they met by chance in the public swimming pool in Lincoln. Brown and his crew were allocated to the mobile reserve. Some time the day before, his regular gunner Don Buntaine had reported sick. Divall’s crew had been taken off the flying schedule as someone else was ill, so Daniel Allatson was hastily reallocated to the front turret of AJ-F. Brown was due to take off third. At dispersal, he smoked his usual two cigarettes and then was shaken when Lewis Burpee came up to him and took his hand. “Goodbye Ken,” was all he said. Grant McDonald saw this and said to Brown: “Skip, you know those guys aren’t coming back, don’t you?” “Yeah, I know,” Brown replied. All McDonald could say then was “Well, damn it!” Two hours later, Brown and his crew witnessed Burpee’s fate, as he strayed too close to Gilze-Rijen airfield, and was shot down. AJ-F pressed on, keeping so low that at times they were below treetop level. They shot up a train which travelled across their path and just avoided crashing into a castle. Having received the signal that both the Möhne and Eder Dams had been destroyed, they diverted towards the Sorpe. On their arrival, they found that the mist which had hampered the only previous attack, by McCarthy two and a half hours previously, had thickened considerably. Working out a line of attack was difficult, and they made several abortive attacks. One of these nearly ended in disaster when they flew into a valley, but quick thinking by Brown and a stall turn got AJ-F out of trouble. Eventually they hit on a plan of marking a circuit with flares, and they dropped their mine successfully at 0314. They had cleared the hill beyond the dam and turned to port when the explosion occurred. Steve Oancia noted a large waterspout, and the crew observed crumbling of the crown of the dam. But no breach had occurred. Flying back over the Möhne, they saw the extensive damage but were themselves fired on by the one gun emplacement still active. McDonald returned fire with gusto, and was pleased to see that the flak went silent. 
With dawn approaching, Brown got down as low as possible and in Basil Feneron’s words “opened up the taps”. AJ-F came through intensive fire at Hamm and at the last danger point, the Helder peninsula on the Dutch coast. The cockpit was flooded with light from searchlights and flak crashd through the perspex. Feneron crouched as low as possible, and could see Brown above him to his left, hunched over the instruments. Somehow, they had all survived, and landed at Scampton at 0533 in an aircraft full of holes. Debriefing followed, with Arthur Harris sitting in. Although there was an impromptu party going on in the Officers Mess, the all-NCO crew in AJ-F seem to have had a quieter celebration. But they were up and about early enough in the morning for a series of photographs. The pilots were all pictured outside the Officers Mess, and then Brown, Oancia and McDonald took their place in the shot of the Canadian survivors. When the decorations were announced, all the officer pilots who dropped their mines successfully were awarded DSOs. Ken Brown and Bill Townsend, both Flight Sergeants at the time, were given the rarely-awarded Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. Stefan Oancia and Dudley Heal both got DFMs. Brown was commissioned in June 1943 and went on to fly on another nine operations in 617 Squadron before being posted out in May 1944. He spent the rest of the war in instructional roles. After the war he stayed on in the RCAF, rising to the rank of Squadron Leader. He retired from the service in 1968, but carried on flying in the Canadian Department of Transport. He had married an Englishwoman, Beryl Blackband, in 1944 and she accompanied him to Canada, where they had five children. Ken Brown died in White Rock, British Columbia on 23 December 2002. Awarded CGM for his part in the Dams Raid.

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