This is a story of Flight Lieutenant Patrick Joseph Harrington-Ryan (135110). 

His father John Harrington arrived in Glasgow from Bolingbroke, Ballycarn outside of Nenagh. His cousin, a Ryan, (very probably a Ryan - Honesty who were next door neighbours in Bolingbroke) had been offered a job whilst in Glasgow  but was feeling homesick, and decided to return home to Ireland. John Harrington turned up for the job, instead and assumed his cousins name and remained.  John met and married Margaret McAllister from Derry in 1905 and they reared a family in Glasgow. John declared on the marriage cert that his father was Michael Ryan and his mother was Bridget Kennedy. Well, part of it was true! John was now to be known as a Ryan. It was as simple as that and no one appears to have queried it. His son, Patrick Joseph Ryan was born 28/04/1919. He was the eight child in the family. John himself died in 1936.

Patrick Joseph joined 101 Lancaster Squadron as a Navigator based in Ludford Magna in Lincolnshire. His service number was 135110.

101 Squadron were an unusual lot. They had an extra crew member who literally operated behind a curtain on the aircraft. Sat in front of heavy Cathode Ray Tubes this member of the crew was tasked with feeding and broadcasting airwave chatter to convince the Germans that the main bomber group was elsewhere. All highly secret and fraught with danger. This extra crew member had to be a fluent German Speaker who fed conflicting intel to German Aircrew and disinformation to the German monitoring stations.

Invariably this crew member would have had to change his name before joining this particular Squadron. He was to be completely disconnected from the Lancaster crew and their onboard radio, his only contact was to be with the Pilot. He was also to be excluded from any photo's or publicity shots. This was all highly secret and classified. This TeleCommunications war was known as ABC - Airborne Cigar. They would take off and join the main bomber group at staggered intervals filtering in so none would know where they came from.

This meant the 101 Squadron was to fly more raids than any other operational squadron and also had a higher casualty rate than almost any other squadron in Bomber Command, as they were tracked by German  VHF operators. They lost 1176 aircrew killed in action.

There was heavy Flak and fierce Nightfighter activity over Berlin the night of 24/08/1943.  There was a 37% moon. Avro Lancaster EE172 SR-Y took part in this raid and on the return journey had the misfortune to be shot down over the North Sea by an ME110 Nachtsjader. Although originally a daytime fighter bomber, the ME110 was better suited as night fighter. The chatter from the Radio Operator would have guided the ME110 on to it's prey. There were no survivors and no indication as to the exact spot in the North Sea where the Lancaster came down. The Lancaster is listed as possibly shot down 30 km North of Ameland, Frisian Islands, over the North Sea with claim time of 03:40 while flying at 3900m altitude, by Leutnant Heinz Grimm of the Stab IV./NJG 1, flying from Leeuwarden airfield . It was Flugzeugführer Leutnant Grimm's 21st victory.

She was one of 17 Lancasters shot down that night. All on board EE172 including Patrick Joseph were lost. The log Book for 101 Squadron for 24/08/1943 is very brief and to the point. It merely remarks that P/O PJ Ryan is missing as were his crewmates. Patrick was 24.

Leutnant Heinz Grimm was himself shot down a month later by his own side. It was German Flak that brought him down. He managed to land his plane but died of his wounds in hospital some days later.

Not often in times of war that you find the victim and the perpetrator.