88035 Flight Lieutenant [Pilot Instructor]
Arthur Patrick Dowse, D.F.C.
The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
78 Squadron.

He had previoulsy been with 144 Squadron.

78 Squadron was based at Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire, and flew Mark 2 Handley Page Halifax bombers on night missions over Germany.
In November 1942, Flight W1063 failed to return from a mission to Genoa, Italy.
The plane ditched off Valencia, and they were interned at Alhama de Aragon, Spain [150km NE of Madrid].
The crew was listed as,
F/Lt. Arthur P. Dowse, Pilot,
P/O Andrew N. Orr, Pilot/Air Bomber,
Sgt. Jeffrey Kershaw, Navigator,
Sgt. Philip Langsford, RNZAF, Wireless Operator,
Sgt. Thomas T. Slater, Flight Engineer,
Sgt. Alfred W. Hoare, Air Gunner,
Sgt. Henry E. Thompson, Bomb Aimer/Gunner.

They obviously escaped from the Spanish internment camp quite quickly, probably through Portugal, and returned to duty. These men are shown in the group photo opposite.

On the night of 16/17 April 1943, Paddy Dowse was again at the controls of a flight which failed to return, Halifax Mk 2 Bomber, DT773.
The crew of this flight was the same as noted above, but Kershaw was replaced as navigator by R. Desjardins.

On this particular mission, the target was the Skoda works at Pilzen [now in the Czech Republic]. It is understood that they were shot down on the return flight.
Paddy Dowse remained at the controls of his plane until all of his crew had baled out over Stuttgart. He died when the plane crashed into a dried out lake Max Eyth See, Stuttgart. He was buried in a nearby cemetery at Steinhaldfeld. His remains were exhumed in 1948, and re-buried at Durnbach.

There is a report of the crash [in German] at the following site.
Fellbacher Zeitung Oct. 1996
which records a visit by Phil Langsford and some of his family to the Fellbach district of Stuttgart in 1996.

[Note. This was the subject of a report in the Irish Times on 21 Feb. 1968, based on an item by a Canadian -one of the surviving crew- in an RAF magazine. Details to be obtained later]

The raid appears to have been been very unsuccessful, with little damage to the Skoda factories. A considerable number of planes appear to have been lost, particularly on the return flight, when they were attacked by night-fighters.


for further details of his war service, see
unit histories


His younger brother Herbert Richard Dowse, who was also an RAF pilot, died in October 1944, during WW2.

Their names are recorded on a War Memorial at
Holy Trinity Church, Killiney, Co. Dublin.

Birth Notice.
Published in The Irish Times, Saturday February 20, 1915.

DOWSE - February 8, 1915, at 17 Tritonville Road, Sandymount, the wife of Herbert Dowse, of a son.

The marriage of Arthur P. Dowse and Joyce S. Ayton was registered in Oakham district, Rutland, [near Leicester], England in the quarter ended December 1941. It is understood that Joyce was a widow, a native of Canada.

RAF Cottesmore was a training base for aircrews on Handley Page Hampden bombers. It was close to Oakham.

The flight took off on 16 April 1943, and the departure date is always the one that the RAF use for the date of death of those who did not return, even though it is apparent that his death occurred at about 3.15am on the morning of 17 April 1943.