On the night of the 16th of December, JA853 MG-L took off from RAF Oakington at 16.24 for the seven-and-a-half-hour flight to Berlin and back. At 18.04 JA853 MG-L was intercepted and attacked by Luftwaffe Bf 110 G9+DZ of the German Night Fighter force, IV./NJG1, then based at Leeuwarden. The aircraft was captained by Oberleutenant Heinz Schnaufer. His fellow crew members were Radio Operator, Fritz Rumpelhardt and Flight Mechanic, Wilhelm Gänsler.

Schnaufer’s aircraft was armed with upward-firing cannons, and the effect of the cannons’ strike on JA853 MG-L was immediate. The aircraft burst into flames, turned over, and fell to earth, landing on a farm owned by the Bangma family in Follega, which lies several kilometres from Lemmer.

Four bodies were found immediately after the crash. These were the bodies of Jimmy Hurst, Ray Hedges, Lloyd Robinson and Doug McWha. Some weeks later, the fifth body - that of Billy Waterman, was found. Five members of the crew are now buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of the Old General Cemetery in Lemmer:

Reginald McWha - Grave C.8.223

James Hurst - Grave C.8.224

Charles Robinson - Grave C.8.225

William Waterman - Grave C.8.226

Raymond Hedges - Grave C.8.227

The bodies of Wal Watson and John Butterworth were never recovered. Their names are therefore recorded in the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial, which lies just outside Windsor, near London.  The Memorial commemorates those airmen who lost their lives in the Second World War and for whom there is no grave.

Wallace Watson - Panel 191

John Butterworth - Panel 192

John Butterworth’s watch was later found in a field and was returned to his family in Australia after the war.

Within 40 minutes, Schnaufer had shot down another three aircraft. Schnaufer ended the war with the highest record of Allied aircraft shot down by the Night Fighters - 121. He died in a car accident in 1950.  The tail of his aircraft is on display in the Imperial War Museum in London.

There are several eyewitness accounts of the crash. One was of Marten Bangma, who was then a boy living on the farm where JA853 MG-L crashed and later became the farm's owner. Another is of  Fritz Rumpelhardt, the Radio Operator of Schnaufer’s aircraft. Both are recorded in the biography of Schnaufer, `Schnaufer: Ace of Diamonds’ by Peter Hinchliffe.

A reconstruction of the destruction of JA853 MG-L is included in an audio/visual display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.