James Allen Ward

Sergeant James Allen Ward VC

James Allen Ward was born at Whanganui, New Zealand, on 14 June 1919, the son of Percy Harold and Ada May Ward. Educated at Wanganui Technical College and the Wellington Teachers’ Training College, he qualified as a teacher in 1939 and began working at Castlecliff School. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Ward volunteered for the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

Called up for training on 1 July 1940, Ward attended the Initial Training Wing at Levin before undertaking flying instruction at Taieri and Wigram. He qualified as a pilot on 18 January 1941, was promoted to sergeant and left New Zealand aboard the Aorangi at the end of that month, travelling via Canada to Britain. After operational training at No. 20 Operational Training Unit, RAF Lossiemouth, he joined No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron at RAF Feltwell. The squadron operated Vickers Wellington bombers as part of RAF Bomber Command.

Ward flew his first recorded operational mission on 16 June 1941, two days after his twenty-second birthday, serving as second pilot to Squadron Leader Reuben Widdowson during a raid on Düsseldorf. Several more operations followed.

The flight over the Zuider Zee

On the night of 7/8 July 1941, Ward was second pilot aboard Wellington Mk IC L7818, coded AA-R, captained by Widdowson, during a bombing operation against Münster.

During the return flight, while the Wellington was over the Zuider Zee at approximately 13,000 feet, it was attacked from below by a Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighter. Cannon shells and incendiary bullets struck the aircraft, rupturing a fuel line and starting a serious fire in the starboard wing near the engine. The Wellington’s rear gunner, Sergeant Allan Box, was wounded in the foot but returned fire and sent the attacking fighter down, apparently out of control.

The crew attempted to fight the flames from inside the fuselage, but the fire was beyond the effective reach of their extinguishers. They even used coffee from their vacuum flasks in an attempt to control it. With the flames threatening to spread across the wing, the crew were warned to prepare to abandon the aircraft.

Ward proposed another course. He volunteered to climb outside and attempt to smother the fire with a canvas engine cover that had been carried aboard the Wellington and was being used as a cushion.

A rope from the aircraft’s emergency dinghy was secured to Ward. With the assistance of the navigator, Sergeant Lawrence "Joe" Lawton, he climbed through the narrow astrodome hatch and took his parachute with him. Fighting the tremendous force of the slipstream, he worked his way down the side of the fuselage, breaking holes in the Wellington’s fabric covering where necessary to provide handholds and footholds.

Ward descended about three feet to the wing and then worked his way approximately another three feet to a position behind the starboard engine. Lying as flat as possible against the aircraft, he reached the burning area and used the canvas cover to smother the flames in the wing fabric. He then attempted to push the cover into the opening around the damaged fuel pipe. The slipstream tore it free, and after another attempt the cover was blown away.

Exhausted, Ward made the dangerous journey back to the astrodome, assisted by Lawton, who maintained control of the safety rope. Ward’s actions had removed much of the burning fabric and prevented the fire from spreading further. Later in the flight, accumulated petrol briefly flared again, but the flames died away.

The badly damaged Wellington reached England and made an emergency landing at Newmarket without normal use of its flaps or brakes. It continued beyond the landing area and struck a hedge and fence before coming to a halt.

Contrary to some published accounts, L7818 was not written off as a result of Ward’s VC flight. The aircraft remained on charge, was subsequently transferred from No. 75 Squadron to No. 15 Operational Training Unit in October 1941 and was finally destroyed in a mid-air collision with a Spitfire during a training flight in April 1942.

For his extraordinary act, Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross. The award was announced in the London Gazette on 5 August 1941. He was the first New Zealand airman to receive the Victoria Cross during the Second World War. He was also the only member of a Wellington bomber crew to receive the Victoria Cross for an action aboard the type.

Ward later met Prime Minister Winston Churchill at 10 Downing Street. According to a frequently repeated later account, Ward was overwhelmed by the occasion and struggled to speak. Churchill is said to have reassured him by observing that Ward could imagine his own discomfort because Churchill himself felt humble in Ward’s presence. As the exchange survives principally through later anecdotal accounts, it should be regarded as a well-established tradition rather than a verbatim contemporary record.

Ward was not promoted in rank as a consequence of the award, as is sometimes stated, but he was subsequently entrusted with command of his own Wellington and crew.

Final mission

On the night of 15/16 September 1941, little more than two months after his act of gallantry, Ward captained Wellington Mk IC X3205, coded AA-L, on a bombing operation against Hamburg. It was his eleventh operational sortie and his fifth as an aircraft captain.

The Wellington was lost during the operation. Two members of the six-man crew, Sergeant Lloyd Elroy Peterson and Sergeant Harold Cook Watson, escaped by parachute and became prisoners of war. Ward and the other three members of the crew were killed.

The precise cause of the aircraft’s destruction is not completely settled in the surviving historical record. Contemporary and later official New Zealand and RAF accounts attributed the loss to anti-aircraft fire over Hamburg. More recent loss research by the International Bomber Command Centre associates X3205 with a successful night-fighter claim by Oberleutnant Reinhold Eckardt. In view of this conflict, it is safest to state that Ward’s Wellington was brought down during the Hamburg operation rather than presenting either flak or night-fighter attack as conclusively established.

Sergeant James Allen Ward was 22 years old. His remains were initially buried by the Germans at Ohlsdorf and, following post-war identification and concentration of Commonwealth graves, he was reinterred in Hamburg Cemetery, grave 5A.A1.9.

Ward never received his Victoria Cross personally. It was presented posthumously to his parents by the Governor-General of New Zealand at Government House, Wellington, on 16 October 1942.

Victoria Cross citation

The official citation appeared in the London Gazette on 5 August 1941. It records the attack on the Wellington, the fire in the starboard wing and Ward’s voluntary decision to climb outside the aircraft. It describes how he moved onto the wing despite the tremendous slipstream, fought the fire and returned to the aircraft exhausted.

The citation concluded that Ward carried out his task:

“at the risk of his life.”

It stated that the Wellington’s return had been made possible by Ward’s gallant action in extinguishing the fire under circumstances of the greatest difficulty.

The complete official citation is preserved in the London Gazette. Ward’s service and the circumstances of his VC action are also documented by New Zealand official records, the Air Force Museum of New Zealand, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and contemporary No. 75 Squadron records.