COMRADES gathered to rekindle the spirit of the dark days of the Second World War at a reunion of squadron members.
The RAF Elsham Wolds Association held a memorial service to honour the sacrifices paid by so many during the war.
Casualty rates among the squadrons attached to Bomber Command were high and part of the 55,000 deaths in the Command out of the 125,000 serving during the Second World War.
Survivors with Squadrons 103 and 576 took part in a moving service of remembrance and later laid wreaths at a memorial site on the former airfield, as reported on www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk at the weekend.
Wreaths were laid by a party of relatives and a representative of the Canadian High Commission to honour those in the Royal Canadian Air Force who were killed.
Conducting a service at Elsham All Saints Church, Canon Peter Hall said: "The stories of their human endeavour abound.
"It was a time when human beings showed the very best of themselves and the very worst.
"We humans can cope with incredible stress, but it leaves its mark and the scars have been borne by many to the present day.
"We cannot know completely its effect on those who flew into curtains of flak and danger night after night, day after day, during those uncertain days of the Second World War."
Canon Hall said the war created "many wonderful bonds, so many broken in a moment of disaster".
A group from Canada took part in the commemoration of a special memorial to a crew of a Canadian aircraft which crashed near the village in 1944.
The wreath-laying was held at the memorial, which is at the Anglian Water Treatment Works, in Elsham.
Author and former assistant editor of the Grimsby Telegraph, Pat Otter, met many of the survivors and their relatives who related stories of their heroism. In a chance encounter, he met the daughter of crew member, William Chambers, of Hull, who died alongside his father, Bernard Otter, in a raid on Germany on December 16, 1943.
The two comrades are buried in the same cemetery in Germany.
Mr Otter was 32 and Mr Chambers was 20.
Mr Otter, who was signing copies of his latest book, "Swift To Attack: 1 Group, Bomber Command's Unsung Heroes" told the airfield had more than 40 Lancasters stationed on it.
He said: "RAF Elsham was an enormously big airfield and an enormously important airfield.
"Losses were extra-ordinarily high.
"Reunions like this are an important way of remembering the achievements and sacrifices they gave to their country.
"It was a time when there was no second front against Germany and the only way of hitting back at Hitler."
He said Bomber Command's losses were higher than any other section of the Armed Forces.
His book, costing £20, is available from Pen and Sword Books at 47, Church Street, Barsley, S70 2AS, as well as from bookshops and online retailers.Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
