Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Arthur Shoesmith was born in Bridgetown, Western Australia on 16th October 1923 to parents William and Charlotte Annie nee Gleadell who were married in 1923. George had a younger sibling, Margaret who was born in 1926.
 
Living in the small country town of Boyup Brook, about 30 kilometres northeast of Bridgetown, his father was the proprietor of a general agent store which sold goods to local farmers, were George worked in the store with his father.
 
George enlisted into the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on 19th July 1942 at Perth. He conducted training where he was finally assigned as a Wireless Operator Air Gunner with the rank of Flight Sergeant, posted to 467 Squadron based at Waddington Lincolnshire, England which operated Lancaster bombers.
 
It was on the night of 29th - 30th August 1944 at 2038 hours, that Lancaster LM267 took off with George and six other crew members from Waddington for bombing operations over Konigsberg, East Prussia which is now called Kaliningrad a province of Russia between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Coast. A total of nineteen Lancaster’s from the squadron took part in the bombing operation. George’s Lancaster LM267 bomb load was a mixture of high explosive and incendiary bombs.
 
Arriving over the target of Konigsberg, George’s Lancaster was at 8,000 feet when it was illuminated by search lights. With the German anti-aircraft positions able to now see the bomber, it was hit several times by flak. Dropping its pay load of bombs the Lancaster was on its way out from the target when the pilot an Australian, Flying Officer John Arthur Richards gave the order to bale out of the stricken bomber.
 
With the Lancaster now difficult to control, with the inner port engine on fire and spreading Flying Officer Thomas Norman Dinsdale also an Australian who was the bomb aimer was the first to exit the stricken bomber. Followed by the navigator, engineer and rear gunner all bailing out before the pilot at 3,500 feet, where the bomber crashed on the Baltic Coast north of Konigsberg.
 
Flight Sergeant George Shoesmith and the mid upper gunner Flight Sergeant John Mahar were unable to open the rear escape hatch of the aircraft and are believed to have gone down with the doomed bomber, later reported by Flying Officer Thomas Dinsdale. A total of five crew members parachuted to safety who were all captured, becoming prisoners of war (POW). These crew members were later released by the advancing Russian troops who advanced into Germany on the 1st May 1945.
 
Flight Sergeant George Arthur Shoesmith along with Flight Sergeant John Mahar were listed as missing presumed killed when the Lancaster George was a crew member of failed to return from bombing operations over Konigsberg, Germany on 30th August 1944.
 
An official memo later sent from RAAF Headquarters London to RAAF Headquarters Melbourne reports that Flight Sergeant Mahar and Flight Sergeant Shoesmith were presumed dead. The memo advises Shoesmith, and one unknown airman were buried in a cemetery at Neukuhren approximately 20 miles northwest of Konigsberg. It was assumed that the unknown to be Flight Sergeant Mahar as five other crew members were reported as safe.
 
Three other Lancaster bombers from George’s squadron also failed to return from the bombing operation over Konigsberg on that night.

After hostilities ceased in 1945 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) searched for the missing throughout Eastern Germany with one of these towns searched for the missing was Konigsberg. Graves that were located, the majority being airmen who were lost on air raids over Germany, where brough back to Berlin and buried in the now Berlin 1939 – 1945 War Cemetery.
 
This cemetery contains 3,595 of Commonwealth burials from the Second World War. There are 397 unidentified Commonwealth servicemen in this cemetery.
 
Maybe Flight Sergeant George Arthur Shoesmith is one of those unidentified airmen buried in the Berlin Cemetery. He was aged 20 years.
 
CWGC records Flight Sergeant George Shoesmith as unrecovered and is commemorated at Runnymede Memorial Surrey England. He is also remembered on the Roll of Honour Boyup Brook, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial Canberra, the Cenotaph Undercroft State War Memorial Kings Park, Perth. George’s family also dedicated a memorial plaque on the Honour Avenue Lovekin Drive Kings Park. His family never gave up hope in locating him, where his father continued to write to the Department of Air Casualty Section Melbourne up until 1949.
 
Flight Sergeant George Arthur Shoesmith, you have not been forgotten.