Heroes of the Victoria Cross
His aircraft ablaze, this pilot’s decision to make a second approach to a drop zone near Arnhem earned him the RAF Transport Command’s only VC
Crossing the Dutch border, Flight Lieutenant David Lord immediately flew into trouble. German flak filled the sky and his Dakota transport aircraft was soon hit twice. It was 19 September 1944, two days after the beginning of Operation Market Garden. Already, the Allies’ plan to bring the war to a quick conclusion by seizing key bridges across the Rhine was unravelling. Lord’s mission was to drop vital supplies to the British 1st Airborne Division and 1st Polish Parachute Brigade surrounded at Arnhem. With one engine burning fiercely, and flying on a wing and a prayer, he made the fateful decision to press on to the drop zone. It was typically characteristic of a man with a reputation for dedication to duty and getting the job done, no matter what.
Quiet, shy and teetotal, a refusal to swear had earned the 30-year-old pilot the nickname ‘Lummee’, an abbreviation of ‘Lord love me’, for his use of this exclamation: it was unknowingly apt, for Lord was a former trainee priest. Born in Cork, Ireland, in 1913, his father’s army service took the family to India, and upon his father’s retirement they settled in Wrexham, North Wales. After studying at the University of Wales, Lord began to train for the priesthood in Spain, but later abandoned his studies and returned to the UK. Enlisting in the RAF in 1936, by 1938 he had successfully applied for pilot training, qualifying as a sergeant pilot in April 1939.
Posted to India, his squadron’s ageing Vickers Valiant biplanes were replaced by USsupplied transport aircraft before the RAF’s own version of the American-built DC-3, the Dakota, became the mainstay of the unit. Quickly promoted to flight sergeant then warrant officer, a four-month stint in North Africa and the Middle East saw his aircraft shot up by three German fighters. Commissioned as a officer in May 1942, he then flew supply and medical evacuation missions in Burma. Having accrued a large number of operational sorties flying deep over enemy territory without a fighter escort, Lord was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on 16 July 1943.
Promoted to flight lieutenant in Januar y 1944, he joined 271 Squadron based at Down Ampney in Gloucestershire in preparation for D-Day. In the early hours of 6 June 1944, Lord successfully delivered 20 British paratroopers and supplies to a drop zone in Normandy and dropped six 20lb (9kg) bombs to disrupt the German defences. He coaxed his flakdamaged aircraft home despite the hydraulics being shot away and damage being sustained to the starboard elevator and the top of the rudder. He received the Kin
