Battles/wars: Second World War - Operation Chastise / Operation Garlic

Awards: Distinguished Service Order Mentioned in Despatches

Dam Buster Les Knight, Australia's most famous WW2 pilot, sacrificed his life for his seven man crew on 16 September 1943. At the same time he steered his doomed Lancaster bomber away from the centre of a Dutch village averting possible further death and destruction.

Flight Lieutenant Leslie Gordon Knight became world famous because his bouncing bomb was the first to breach the Eder dam and cause serious damage.

All Knight’s crew survived. They bailed out above the frontier village of Den Ham during darkness after their mission to bomb an aquaduct on the vital supply route Dortmund-Ems canal failed. This mission was "Operation Garlic".

Les Knight and his crew attacked the canal in Ladbergen, Germany, exactly four months after the famous Dam Busters raid in the Rhur. The raid on Ladbergen proved to be fatal for Les Knight. His plane damaged when flying at low level for the whole mission hit tree tops near the target area. He realised the plane was so badly damaged that he could never get it back to England. Above the village of Den Ham he ordered the crew to bail out. Two were directly taken prisoner by the German occupying army but the other five all returned safely to England -- thanks to the extreme bravery of the local population. They risked their lives and that of their families to secure these five airmen.

https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2018-05-29.107.1