Roland Reginald Cowan: Inside story of the loss of Lancaster bomber ND 729 crew in 1944

Roland Reginald Cowan wasn’t even supposed to be flying on the day he was shot down in the skies over France. His nephew reveals the tragic story of the seven men who didn’t come home.

Roland Reginald Cowan wasn’t even supposed to be flying on the day he was shot down in the skies over France.

The then-24-year-old Flight Lieutenant was at the controls of Lancaster bomber ND 729 with six of his closest friends and colleagues on a mission to attack a V1 rocket launching facility on the night of June 25, 1944.

Taking off from Waddington, the plane and its crew, attached to 467 Squadron, were on their 33rd mission together.

They were supposed to have been given a reprieve from combat after 30 missions but a change in policy meant they had to fly 33 to qualify for that much-sought after break.

Roland Reginald Cowan’s Lancaster was shot down in 1944

But in the night sky over Europe, their luck ran out.

The plane was spotted by searchlights and fired upon by German forces, taking heavy damage.

The plane, shattered by heavy flak, broke up and crashed near Abbeville in the Somme region of northern France.

All seven aboard were killed.

Flight Lieutenant Cowan’s body, unlike those of his mates, was never recovered.

His death was not confirmed to his family waiting back in southeast Queensland until nearly four years later.

Roland Reginald Cowan DFC.

Today, a wreath will be laid for him and his crewmates at a Dawn Service held at The Southport School (TSS) by his nephew, Southport resident Ken Cowan.

Mr Cowan grew up wondering about the truth of what had happened to the uncle he never knew.

“It was a bureaucratic tragedy that meant they had to fly 33 missions rather than the usual 30 when they were shot down attacking a doodlebug launch site,” he said.

“There were 112 Lancasters on that mission, it was a massive operation.

“My father never knew the details of the crash and what had actually occurred and we didn’t know why he was flying a 33rd mission.

Roland Reginald Cowan and his crew were shot down in 1944. None survived Picture Glenn Hampson

“Being a pilot, he would have stayed with that plane to the very end.”

Flight Lieutenant Cowan was posthumously honoured with the Distinguished Flying Cross after the war, an award which was presented to his parents at Government House in Brisbane.

“The families back home suffered incredibly and the sacrifice made was extraordinary – they’d always hoped he had been taken as a prisoner of war but were not told until 1948 that no further search would be undertaken to find his body.

“The irony was that he’d flown in the Nuremberg raids and on missions over Berlin, flights which had some of the highest loss rates of the entire war, yet he was shot down on a shorter mission.”

Southport resident Ken Cowan with a photograph of his uncle Roland Reginald Cowan DFC. Picture Glenn Hampson

Mr Cowan made an emotional pilgrimage to France in 1997 to attend a memorial ceremony when he had an incredible chance encounter.

“I met a man who was in his 80s at the time who took me to his farm and we went down the machinery shed and there was a section of a Lancaster’s wing,” he said.

“The man told me it was a section of my uncle’s plane and chiselled off a piece of it which bore a serial number and gave it to me.

“A few months later we got confirmation it was the wing of my uncle’s plane.”

Mr Cowan still has the piece today and will look upon it today and think of those who died on that day 80 years ago.

“I don’t just remember my uncle, I think of the whole seven of them and I always go and lay a wreath for them.”