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| Name | PRUSHER |
| First names | Derek Francis |
| Rank | Sgt |
| Service | RAF |
| Service number | 1867428 |
| Crew position | Air Gunner |
| Age | 18 |
| Date of death | 03/01/44 |
| Cemetery | No known grave (remembered at Runnymede) |
 Part of the panel at Runnymede |
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 Is this the final resting place of Sgt Prusher? |
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![Photo from the effects of Philip Otley Camm reproduced courtesy of Barbara [Betty] Lister.](../../Roll%20of%20Honour_images8/Prusher_D.jpg) |
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F/L Johnny Palmer, Unknown, Sgt Philip Otley Camm. (Possibly Sgt Prusher is one of the two unknowns) |
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| 2/3 January, 1944; BERLIN:
Every available person on the station gave a hand in clearing the snow ready for the evening's operation. Take-offs were able to begin 15 minutes before midnight with Fiskerton managing to get 12 aircraft airborne from the 13 detailed. Just 311 bombers struggled to reach a cloud-covered Berlin where the bombing was spread, with no concentrated fires developing. The German controllers had realised the bombers target in advance and instructed the night-fighters accordingly; most of the 27 Lancasters lost, fell in the Berlin area. The reason for the total loss of F/Lt Johnny Palmer (JB727 EA-S) and crew has never been established; the pilot, who had recently celebrated his 21st birthday is remembered along with his crew on the Runnymede Memorial; their mid-upper gunner, Derek Prusher, was just 18 years old. It is just possible that F/Lt Palmer’s S - Sugar was the aircraft that was in collision with another Fiskerton Lancaster that night as it would have been in the same wave, and if slightly ahead of N-Nan it would have changed course and be heading back across the track of the oncoming tail-enders. Lancaster JB727 (EA-S) F/L C.J.E. Palmer Pilot (Killed) Sgt P.O. Camm F/E (Killed) F/O G.T. Young NAV (Killed) Sgt H. Conrad W/OP (Killed) Sgt D.D.R. Dallaway A/G (Killed) F/O R. Stobo A/B (Killed) Sgt D.F. Prusher A/G (Killed) Crew on their 11th operation |
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"The story of Sgt Philip Camm Parts 1&2" which gives additional details of this crash and the family's correspondence with the RAF |
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