CANNING, F/O KENNETH T. – Service # J16816
Ken was born May 16, 1922 in Dunchurch, the only son of James and Alice (Bayne) Canning. Flying officer Kenneth Canning was a wireless operator/air gunner with the 405 Squadron.
Ken Canning’s story is told in John Macfie’s book Now and Then, More Footnotes to Parry Sound History pages 136-138.
Ken was the wireless operator on a Royal Canadian Air Force Lancaster bomber which on January 27, 1944 failed to penetrate what he had earlier described in a letter to Don Macfie as a “wall of fire” – the line of German defenses along the Rhine.
Ken Canning
At far left, Kenneth T. Canning. Near left Don Macfie.
The “wall of fire” was the line of German defences concentrated along the Rhine River half way between their 408 Squadrons base in Yorkshire, and the night’s target, Berlin. (Bombers could complete the trip in darkness only during the long nights of winter.) It was also the halfway point in the so-called Battle of Berlin, the winter offensive carried out against the German capital between November 1943 and April 1944.
He is buried with seven fellow crew members, near Cologne (alternatively identified as British Military Cemetary near Rheinburgh, Germany). It was his 13th trip into enemy territory, the one aircrew dreaded most. Apparently the Lancaster was rammed by a German fighter plane that the Lancaster crew’s own gunners had disabled.
Flying Officer Kenneth T. Canning
The details of Kenneth Canning’s Service follow.
