In the quiet, ancient churchyard of St. Cuthbert’s, Brattleby, a small village nestled in the rolling landscape of the Lincolnshire Edge, stands a headstone that tells a global story. Surrounded by the weathered monuments of centuries of English parishioners, this one is different. Carved from pristine Portland stone, its uniform design and the emblem of a maple leaf speak not of local lineage, but of a distant home and a violent, modern war. It marks the final resting place of Pilot Officer Clare Llewellyn Connor, Royal Canadian Air Force, who died on the 21st of February 1944, aged just 21.
This single grave is more than a memorial to one man. It is a portal, a tangible link between this tranquil corner of Lincolnshire and the immense, catastrophic sweep of the Second World War. It connects the local history of the Barony of Brattleby to the strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany, the vast international enterprise of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and the profound personal sacrifice of a young man from the plains of Saskatchewan. Connor’s story transforms Brattleby from a point on a local map into a site of international memory, a quiet testament to a time when Lincolnshire’s skies thundered with the engines of war and its fields became the final sanctuary for those who fought and fell.
‘Bomber County’: The Transformation of the Lincolnshire Landscape
To understand why a Canadian pilot lies in Brattleby, one must first envision the Lincolnshire of the 1940s. For centuries, this was a profoundly agricultural county, its identity shaped by the rhythm of the seasons, the Cathedral’s spire dominating the horizon, and the life of its market towns. The Second World War irrevocably altered this landscape and its soundscape. Its flat terrain, proximity to the North Sea, and easterly position relative to Germany’s industrial heartland made it the ideal location for the airfields of RAF Bomber Command.
By 1944, Lincolnshire was, without exaggeration, a giant aircraft carrier. Over forty operational airfields punctuated the countryside, their vast concrete runways and sprawling networks of Nissen huts and hangars consuming thousands of acres of prime farmland. The county became universally known as ‘Bomber County’. From bases like RAF Waddington, Scampton, Coningsby, and a host of others, Avro Lancasters, Handley Page Halifaxes, and other heavy bombers would depart nightly, their silhouettes black against the dusk sky as they formed up over the coast for the perilous journey into occupied Europe.
For the local population, the war was an ever-present reality. The air vibrated with the roar of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines being tested, the drone of training flights by day, and the awesome, earth-shaking thunder of hundreds of bombers taking off for a major raid by night. Villagers became adept at identifying aircraft by their engine sounds alone. They watched the flickering of searchlights, the glow of distant fires from German air raids on Hull or Lincoln, and, most poignantly, they counted the bombers as they returned in the grey light of dawn, noting the empty spaces in the formations. The war brought an influx of tens of thousands of young men—British, but also thousands of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Poles, Czechs, and Rhodesians—who filled the local pubs, attended village dances, and formed fleeting but powerful bonds with the communities that hosted them. Brattleby, lying just a few miles north of Lincoln and in close proximity to several key airfields, was at the very heart of this transformed world.
A Canadian in Lincolnshire: The Journey of Clare L. Connor
Clare Llewellyn Connor was one of these thousands of young men. He was born on 14th June 1922 in Arcola, a small town in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada. The son of Lloyd Llewellyn Connor and Margaret Gertrude Connor, he grew up in a world far removed from the ancient conflicts of Europe. Like many of his generation, his path to war began with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP).
Initiated in December 1939, the BCATP was a monumental undertaking, an agreement between Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to train aircrews on a scale the RAF could not manage alone in the besieged British Isles. Canada, with its vast open spaces, favourable weather, and relative safety from enemy attack, became the plan’s linchpin, earning the moniker ‘the aerodrome of democracy’ from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Over 131,000 personnel—pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators, and air gunners—were trained under the programme, nearly half of them Canadian.
Clare Connor would have progressed through this rigorous system: initial selection, elementary flying school on basic trainers, and service flying school on more advanced aircraft, before earning his coveted pilot’s wings. Upon graduation, he would have embarked on a troopship for the perilous Atlantic crossing to Britain. Once in the UK, he would have passed through an Operational Training Unit (OTU) to be ‘crewed up’ with the six other men who would form his surrogate family, and to learn to fly the heavy, four-engined bombers they would take into combat.
His final posting was to No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, stationed at RAF Dunholme Lodge. This airfield, located just two miles northeast of Brattleby, had opened in 1943 as a satellite station for RAF Scampton. No. 44 Squadron was a distinguished unit with a history stretching back to the First World War. The ‘Rhodesia’ designation, granted in 1941, reflected the fact that it was formally adopted by the colony of Southern Rhodesia, receiving financial support and a steady stream of Rhodesian volunteers, though its ranks were filled with men from across the Commonwealth. Here, Flying Officer (as he was then) Connor began his operational tour, flying the legendary Avro Lancaster—the workhorse of Bomber Command.
The Last Flight: A Raid on Stuttgart, 20/21 February 1944
The life of a bomber crew was a maelstrom of procedural routine punctuated by moments of intense terror. A tour of operations consisted of thirty sorties, a target few managed to reach. With a loss rate that, at its worst, meant a crewman had a lower chance of survival than an infantry officer in the trenches of 1916, every mission was a gamble against staggering odds.
On the night of 20th February 1944, Pilot Officer Connor and his crew were detailed for a major raid on the German industrial city of Stuttgart. The target was a hub for the production of Daimler-Benz and Bosch components, vital to the German war machine. It was a long and dangerous flight deep into southern Germany. The crew of Lancaster ME580, call-sign ‘KM-N’, that night comprised:
Pilot Officer Clare L. Connor (Pilot, RCAF) Sergeant J. F. R. Preece (Flight Engineer, RAF) Flying Officer M. H. Smith (Navigator, RAF) Sergeant A. S. Woollven (Wireless Operator, RAF) Sergeant R. T. Little (Bomb Aimer, RAF) Sergeant William ‘Billy’ Hope (Mid-Upper Gunner, RAF) * Sergeant R. M. Wilson (Rear Gunner, RAF)
The mission involved a force of 598 bombers—550 Lancasters and 48 Halifaxes. As was typical, the crews would have been woken in the late morning, eaten their pre-flight meal of bacon and eggs, and attended the main briefing. There, the curtain would be dramatically pulled back from a large wall map to reveal the target, marked by a ribbon of tape stretching from Lincolnshire across the Channel, over France, and deep into the Reich. They would have received meteorological forecasts, intelligence on enemy night-fighter and flak concentrations, and the precise timings for their bombing run.
Connor would have guided Lancaster ME580 into the air from Dunholme Lodge at 23:35 hours. The bomber, laden with a 4,000lb ‘cookie’ blockbuster bomb and hundreds of incendiaries, would have laboured into the night sky, joining the vast stream of aircraft heading southeast. For hours, they sat in the freezing, vibrating fuselage, isolated yet part of an immense airborne armada. Over enemy territory, the tension would have been unbearable. The sky would be laced with the criss-crossing beams of searchlights and blossomed with the deadly black puffs of flak explosions. The greatest fear was the German night-fighters, equipped with upward-firing cannons (Schräge Musik), which could approach unseen from below and tear a bomber apart.
The raid on Stuttgart itself was not a success. Poor weather and heavy cloud cover meant the Pathfinders struggled to mark the target accurately, and the main force bombed scattered and wide. But for Connor and his crew, the greatest danger was not over the target, but on the long flight home. Bomber Command’s own analysis later showed that crews were often at their most vulnerable on the return leg, fatigued and with their guard slightly lowered.
According to the squadron’s Operations Record Book and subsequent reports, Lancaster ME580 successfully navigated the return journey across France and the English Channel. Lincolnshire was in sight. They were minutes from the safety of their home airfield. At approximately 07:15 on the morning of 21st February, as they prepared for their landing approach to Dunholme Lodge, tragedy struck. An uncontrollable fire broke out in the starboard inner engine. The blaze rapidly grew, threatening to consume the entire wing, which was full of fuel vapour.
Connor’s final actions were those of a consummate pilot. Realising the aircraft was doomed and at a low altitude, he fought to keep it stable to give his crew a chance to escape. An order to abandon the aircraft was given. For the men in the rear of the Lancaster, escape was a terrifying prospect. They had to clip on their parachutes, jettison a hatch, and hurl themselves into the dark, rushing air from a burning, potentially spinning aircraft. Sergeants Hope, Wilson, Little, and Woollven managed to bail out, though Woollven was injured on landing.
For the three men in the cockpit section—Pilot Officer Connor, Flight Engineer Preece, and Navigator Smith—escape was far more difficult. They were in a more confined space, and the pilot’s primary duty was to maintain control as long as possible. They had no chance. Seconds later, the Lancaster exploded in the air and plunged into the ground. The main wreckage fell in a field at Sudbrooke, just a few miles from the runway at Dunholme Lodge and a short distance from Brattleby. Clare Connor, J. F. R. Preece, and M. H. Smith were killed instantly. They had almost made it home.
A Final Resting Place: Brattleby and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
In the aftermath of the crash, the grim task of recovery began. The bodies of the three airmen who died were taken to the station mortuary at RAF Scampton. In wartime, it was customary for airmen killed in the UK to be buried in the graveyard nearest their station or, if preferred by the family, repatriated to their home town within Britain. For overseas personnel like Clare Connor, burial in a local cemetery was the norm. His service records note him as being ‘Killed on Active Service’, and he was laid to rest with full military honours in the churchyard of St. Cuthbert’s, Brattleby, the parish bordering the western edge of the RAF Dunholme Lodge and Scampton complex. His English crewmates, Smith and Preece, were returned to their respective hometowns of Watford and Hereford for burial.
The grave in Brattleby is therefore not an accident of history, but a direct consequence of wartime logistics and geography. Yet its significance is amplified by the organisation that maintains it: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). Founded by Sir Fabian Ware amidst the slaughter of the First World War, the CWGC was built on the egalitarian principle that every war dead, regardless of rank, race, or religion, should be commemorated individually and equally.
Connor’s headstone embodies this philosophy. Its dimensions are standard, its material identical to that of a Field Marshal or a Private buried in any of the 23,000 CWGC sites across the globe. The inscription provides his name, rank, service number (J/85215), unit, and date of death. Below this, the cross emblem signifies his Christian faith, while the maple leaf of the Royal Canadian Air Force denotes his national service. At the foot of the stone is a personal epitaph chosen by his grieving parents thousands of miles away in Saskatchewan:
IN OUR HEARTS YOU WILL ALWAYS STAY, LOVED AND REMEMBERED EVERY DAY.
This simple, poignant message bridges the vast distance between the Canadian prairies and the Lincolnshire Wolds. It transforms an official military grave into a site of intensely personal grief and memory. The CWGC headstone is both a uniform marker of a state’s debt to its fallen soldier and a unique monument to a beloved son.
From Living Memory to Enduring Heritage
In the decades since 1944, the airfields of ‘Bomber County’ have largely vanished. RAF Dunholme Lodge closed in 1945, its runways were broken up, and the land returned to agriculture. Today, only faint traces in the landscape and a small memorial near the old main gate betray its wartime past. The thunder of Merlin engines has been replaced by the silence of the fields.
But the memory has not faded. It has evolved. While the generation with living memory of the war dwindles, the story of men like Clare Connor has become a sacred trust for the communities that host their graves. The people of Brattleby, the congregation of St. Cuthbert’s, and local historical societies tended to his grave long before official heritage became a popular concern. His story, and that of his crew, is kept alive by organisations like the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre and by the quiet, dignified Remembrance Sunday services held each November in churchyards across the county.
The grave of Pilot Officer Connor serves as a powerful educational tool and a point of pilgrimage. It reminds us that the war was not a distant, abstract event but a local one, fought and felt in places like Brattleby. It is a focal point for understanding the global nature of the conflict; a young Canadian, flying from an English base in a squadron with a Rhodesian name, dying alongside his British comrades in the fight against German fascism. It connects the historical identity of the Barony of Brattleby not just to its medieval and Norman past, but to this pivotal moment of the 20th century.
For visitors today—whether they are local residents, battlefield tourists, or Canadians seeking to connect with their nation’s history—the experience of standing before Connor’s grave is profoundly moving. The contrast between the peaceful, timeless setting of an English country churchyard and the violent, technological death of its occupant is stark. Here, the global meets the local, the past meets the present, and the immense, impersonal machinery of war is distilled into the story of one young man and the family that loved him. The grave is not just a stone; it is an anchor of memory, ensuring that the sacrifice of Clare Connor, and the generation he represents, will not be forgotten.
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Sources & Further Reading
Primary Sources:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). Casualty Details for Pilot Officer Clare Llewellyn Connor, Service No. J/85215. Available online at [www.cwgc.org](http://www.cwgc.org). The National Archives, Kew (TNA). Operations Record Book (ORB) of No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron RAF, AIR 27/449/2. This document contains the daily summary of operations, including the entry for the Stuttgart raid on 20/21 February 1944 and the loss of Lancaster ME580. Chorley, W. R. Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Volume 5: 1944*. Midland Publishing, 1997. (Provides a concise record of the crew and the circumstances of the crash).
Secondary Sources:
Bowman, Martin W. The Night-Time War: The Unseen Conflict of RAF Bomber Command, 1939-1945. Pen & Sword Aviation, 2015. (Provides excellent context on the operational experience of bomber crews). Dunmore, Spencer. Above and Beyond: The Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. McClelland & Stewart, 2004. Halpenny, Bruce Barrymore. Action Stations: 2. Military airfields of Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1981. (The definitive guide to Lincolnshire’s wartime airfields, including Dunholme Lodge). Hastings, Max. Bomber Command. Pan Macmillan, 2010 (first published 1979). (A classic, if controversial, overview of the strategic bombing campaign). Hatch, F. J. The Aerodrome of Democracy: Canada and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, 1939-1945. Department of National Defence, Ottawa, 1983. Middlebrook, Martin, and Chris Everitt. The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939-1945. Midland Publishing, 2014 (revised edition). (An indispensable day-by-day account of all Bomber Command operations). Overy, Richard. The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. Allen Lane, 2013. (A comprehensive and more recent scholarly analysis of the Allied bombing campaigns). Otter, Patrick. Lincolnshire Airfields in the Second World War. Countryside Books, 1996. (A valuable local study). Ware, Fabian. The Immortal Heritage: An Account of the Work and Policy of the Imperial War Graves Commission During Twenty Years, 1917-1937*. Cambridge University Press, 1937. (Explains the founding philosophy of the CWGC by its creator).