Every Name A Story Content
WOOLER

Dodds, R.L., Pt/Off., 1944
In Calais Canadian War Cemetery, Leubringhen, is the Commonwealth War Grave of 172519 Pilot Officer Robert Leslie Dodds, serving with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve who died 12/09/1944.

Simon Glancey has submitted the following:

P/O (Navigator) R L Dodds (Service Nº 172519) was lost on Boeing Fortress III HB767 BU-A of 214 Sqn. It is presumed to have crashed in the English Channel off Calais on a Bomber Support mission. He is buried in the Canadian War Cemetery, Leubringhen in the Pas de Calais.

214 Sqn was part of 100 Group, which specialised in Electronic Countermeasures. Their aircraft carried special equipment designed to block German night fighter communications systems and also carried German speaking crew who would pose as German ground controllers to steer Luftwaffe night fighters away from RAF bomber streams.
Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: 1944; W.R. Chorley; 1997; Midland Counties Publications; ISBN 0 904597 91 1 page 421 (this lists him as RCAF – Royal Canadian Air Force, maybe linked to the fact he is buried in the Canadian War Cemetery.)

214 Squadron Personel weblink
The CWGC entry for Pilot Officer Dodds

If you know more about this person, please send the details to janet@newmp.org.uk