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This account was provided and recorded by Denis Price of the 大象传媒 People's War Team, the 大象传媒 Open Centre, Hull.

Being a very small boy at the time of the Second World War my memories are unclear and largely based on the happenings of its last two years. One memory which does remain clear is that of a relative in the RAF, Bill Ashurst. He would have been twenty or twenty-one when I remember him visiting our crowded home in Driffield for one of the many family weddings that seemed to take place in those turbulent times.
I recall distinctly that he was a Sergeant and wore the coveted wings of a pilot on his chest which I found nearly as impressive as the barley sugar, saved from his aircrew rations, which he would hand out freely to us sweet starved kids. That was my personal war-time recollection of Bill. In later years I was told he'd been shot down with all his crew on a bombing raid and all had been lost.
Some years ago I was reading a book on 'The Berlin Raids" by Alan Cooper which provided a detailed account of this period of the Bomber War, from approximately November 1943 to March 1944. This was almost a personal vendetta conducted against the German capital by the chief of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Harris. It was also the time when the young crews of Bomber Command suffered their greatest losses as the German night fighters coordinating with the highly developed 'flak' defences were at their most successful with some German 'aces' bringing down five or six RAF Heavy Bombers in a night!
In Alan Cooper's book I came upon the names of Bill and his crew under 'Losses'. To my surprise I learned that one crew member, the Canadian Bomb Aimer Harry Proskurniak had bailed out at a very low level and survived to become a prisoner of war.
This discovery heightened my interest and I became determined to find out more. After an initial lucky break I found Harry Proskurniak alive and well in Winnipeg and he kindly wrote an account of Bill Ashurst's eleventh and final operation.
Harry writes of the night of 15th/ 16th February 1944 when the Lancaster bombers of Kelstern were leaving on yet another dangerous trip to the German capital. The route of the aircraft was over Denmark in order to hopefully evade the nightfighter airfields and flak batteries based in the Low Countries. Due to a mechanical fault their Lancaster,numbered R 5702, took off at 1725 hours which was twenty- five minutes later than the other aircraft.
On the flight to Berlin Harry recalls that when they were over Denmark they were hit by German nightfighter aircraft and set on fire. He recalls Bill instructing him to 'get rid of the bomb load' which included a 'cookie' as the giant 4,000 lb High Explosive bombs were known. He recalls the aircraft completely out of control and losing height. In his position as Bomb-Aimer, Harry would have his own escape hatch or door below him which he remembers frantically trying to open. He says,' I must have lapsed into unconsciousness when trying to open it, when I came to, it must have been the abrupt jerk of my parachute opening which really woke me up. The parachute really saved my life but I'll never know how I opened it! For me it was a miracle! I still keep asking myself the question, 'Why was my life spared and not that of any of my comrades?'
Harry's account was from the air but what of the effect of the enormous explosion on the ground? Harry put me in touch with a Danish journalist, Mr. Leif Gr. Thomsen of Haderslev, Denmark. Mr. Thomsen forwarded a detailed account to me of the reaction of the people of the village of Fjelstrup and the occupying Germans who left the scattered bodies of Bill and his crew for several days before collecting them for a military funeral. His account is very detailed and contributed to by many of the local people who were also very kind to Harry Proskurniak who was eventually taken prisoner.
The bodies of Bill and his crew lie buried in the churchyard of the town of Aabenraa and a memorial has been erected near the spot where they fell.On the stone it reads,

'Here fell six British airmen on February 15th 1944
They gave their lives, we won our liberty'

Each year on the anniversary of the crash, local schoolchildren place flowers on the memorial.

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