Earl Theodore's Story.
Earl Theodore Bell was born on 4th December 1915 in Guelph, Ontario to parents James and Alice Bell. After completing his education, he worked as an inspector at a cotton mill. He married Georgina in 1937 and they had two children. He enlisted in the RCAF at Hamilton, Ontario on 15th January 1941. He was interested in becoming aircrew but at that time married men were excluded from applying as aircrew, so he initially enlisted for General Duties (ground crew). However, the policy had changed by April 1941 and Earl remustered as aircrew and trained as a Wireless Operator/ Air Gunner. Following his training in Canada he sailed for UK arriving in September 1943. He was initially posted on 30th November to the Meteorological Conversion Unit at RAF Tiree then on 10th February 1944 to 517(MET) Squadron based RAF Brawdy in Pembrokeshire where he flew in Halifax V bombers converted to Met duty. His first flight was a training flight on 17th February then on 20th February he was part of the delivery crew that flew Halifax LK 998 from Gosport to Brawdy following conversion to Met duty. His final flight was on 24th February 1944 when he was part of the 8 man crew of LK998 that took off with a Hurricane fighter for a fighter affiliation flight where the fighter practiced attacking the bomber whilst the bomber took evasive action. Unfortunately, during the exercise, the bomber dived into a cloud and the tail came off causing it to crash killing all 8 crew members. The 4 Canadian crew members including Earl were buried at Blacon Cemetery. An investigation into the cause of the accident found that the pilot exceeded the structural limits of the aircraft when performing evasive action causing the tail to detach.
Earl training in Canada
Accident Report 1
Accident report 2
Accident Report 3
Accident Report 4
Funeral procession at Blacon
Burial at Blacon
Funeral Service at Blacon
517 Squadron Halifax colour scheme
MET converted Halifax as used by 517 Squadron