AN OSWESTRY man has paid tribute to his twin uncles ahead of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, where one died starting the bombardment of German positions.

Chris Bryan-Smith’s Uncle Martin was squadron leader and also tail gunner of ‘Z Zebra’, the lead Lancaster Bomber for the bombing that preceded the infantry landing late on June 6, 1944.

Mr Bryan-Smith explained how his Uncle Martin was involved and how his war came to an end on that fateful day.

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He said: “At 4.50am that morning, just before dawn, 97 Squadron flying Lancasters started their bombing run over the gun emplacements on the cliffs of Pont du Hoc, situated on the Normandy coast.

“As the squadron turned for home, lead Lancaster, Z Zebra was shot down and the rest of the squadron assumed that it had crashed into the sea but, in fact, it crashed a little inland at a place called Carentan with the loss of all the crew.

“The Operations Record Book (ORB) stated ‘as we turned, we could see that we’d give the target a ‘right prang’ but saw Z Zebra go down’

“Martin had served with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve since the outbreak of war in 1939, survived many missions – 16 in the last few months, which included targets in Hanover, Mannheim, Leipzig, Kassel, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Berlin and had volunteered for this operation along with the rest of the crew.

“He is commemorated at the RAF Memorial for lost Airmen at Runnymede although the remains of his aircraft were later found in 2012.”

Chris added that four years earlier on April 15, 1940 Martin’s twin brother, Pilot Officer Anthony Bryan-Smith was taking off as rear gunner in a Handley Page Hampden L4043 aircraft of 49 Squadron RAF, on a mine laying operation off the coast of the Frisian Islands, Lower Saxony, Germany.

However, bad weather forced them to abandon their mission and then the plane crashed off the coast near Sunderland in the North East and Uncle Anthony was caught while trying to escape his position in the plane, dying immediately.

Chris added: “The telegrams, received by their families back in England, would have caused equal grief and were not dependant on the nature or importance of the missions involved.

“My father, who served in the Royal Artillery during the war, would not talk about the losses unless questioned and even then, said little apart from ‘that’s what happens in war, those that remain must carry on – but I will never forget the twins’.

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“I visited Pont du Hoc with my brother and we saw the scars which remain there from the bombing and held fragments of Lancaster Z-Zebra in a shed, ‘somewhere in Normandy’.

“We counted our lucky stars we haven’t experienced the heartbreak and raw grief that so many experienced throughout the Second World War.

“You’d think that humanity would have learned from that carnage – but apparently not.”