At the height of the Second World War in Europe, the RAF’s Bomber Command was engaged in the perilous task of taking the war to the enemy. Bombing missions targeted Germany’s industrial and military complexes and its cities. The cost was high. Of the 125,000 aircrew who served in Bomber Command, 55,573 or over 44%, lost their lives - the highest fatality rate of any Allied unit during the war. The airmen in Bomber Command came from the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, and from many other countries around the globe. All were volunteers.

Great courage was required to endure long flights at night in cramped and bleak conditions over Nazi occupied territory against the ferocious assaults of the enemy.

Among the many losses of Bomber Command was that of JA853 MG-L, an Avro Lancaster Mark III in the service of 7 Squadron of the Pathfinder Force (PFF). On the 16th of December, 1943, on the outbound journey of a raid on the heavily defended city of Berlin, the aircraft was shot down over the farming hamlet of Follega, in Friesland, the Netherlands. All seven members of the crew lost their lives. Like so many members of Bomber Command, the crew of the aircraft were young men whose lives had hardly begun. Like so many other Bomber Command crews, too, they had come from far-flung places.