Rank: Flying Officer
Trade: Air Bomber
Service No: 153326
Date of Death: 30/08/1944. Age: 33
Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 90th Squadron. Lancaster LM 189
Grave Reference: Coll. grave 967-968. Cemetery: AALESTRUP CHURCHYARD
Son of George E. and Mary Allman, of Chester; husband of Gwynneth Allman.

An edited account of the flight of Lancaster LM 189 on the 30th August 1944.

The pilot of the plane was Flight Lieutenant David Sumsion. With him in the plane he had his good friend Pilot Officer Henry Edward Allman, born on 12th January, 1911. He was an assistant to a technical engineer, a skilled piano player and director of the choir of Tattenhall Church. The very day the war broke out Allman joined the RAF as a volunteer. After his training in Canada in 1943 he participated in many bombing raids over Germany. In July Mrs Allman gave birth to a son, who was named David after his friend.

On 29th August, 1944 this crew with nearly 600 others flew over Jutland at about midnight. Lancaster LM 184 targeted Stettin, but it was shot down by a German night fighter and crashed burning to the ground just south of Aalestrup in Denmark. All of the crew were killed, including Flight Officer Henry Edward Allman.

On 1st September, 1944 Flight Officer Allman´s parents in Chester received a telegram saying: "30th August 1944 deeply regret to inform you that your son Flight Officer Henry Edward Allman is missing as result of air operation on the night of 29th/30th Aug ... Any further information received will be immediately communicated to you..."

The very same day Allman and the 6 other airmen who had been shot down at Aalestrup Churchyard were initially recorded as unknown. However, farmer Martin Husum, owner of the field with the crash site, later found an identification tag, which he passed on to the leader of the resistance movement in Aalestrup, blacksmith Arne Dantoft, who sent it to Toldstrup, who sent a wireless message to London about the find. It was said that the tag had this inscription, "GB 153326 officer H.E. Allman CE-RAF" and that all of the airmen were buried at Aalestrup Churchyard.

On 6th April, 1945 the telegraph messenger again came to the home of the Allmans in Chester. The telegram read,  "Deeply regret to advise you that according to information received through a reliable source your son Flight Officer Henry Edward Allman is believed to have lost his life as the result of air operations on 29/30/8 1944... The air council express their profound sympathy. His wife has been informed..."

It later turned out that all seven crew had perished in the wreck. The bodies of the six airmen were heavily charred; the seventh, presumably the pilot, sat in the remains of the cabin with crushed head. There were many issues over the crash as the village was occupied by a unit of the German Army. The villagers wanted to respect the airman and bury them in their churchyard, but the German’s refused. The villagers however took things into their own hands and graves were dug. In the evening at the crash site a short ceremony place, where an Evangelical and a Catholic priest participated. Mrs. Sigrid Husum, daughter of MP Laust Nørskov, sneaked up and laid flowers on the coffins of the dead, and no one said anything about it. The next morning all the men were buried in the cemetery without German knowledge and involvement. The Lancaster’s log book which had been found and hidden by the villagers, was later sent back to the RAF. The men are all commemorated by a Commonwealth Grave Commission Grave, and a plaque at Allestrup church.

Rank: Gunner. Service No: 11429289
Date of Death: 25/08/1946. Age: 23
Regiment/Service: Royal Artillery
Grave Reference: 6. G. 14. Cemetery: HELIOPOLIS WAR CEMETERY
Son of Hugh and Elizabeth Ashley, of Vicar's Cross, Cheshire.

More research is needed to find the circumstances surrounding Gunner Hugh Ashley’s loss of life. As the date is August 1946, it suggests he was helping with tasks after the war had ended, or helping to protect the passage of ships through the Suez Canal. There were riots in Cairo in 1946, but Hugh is the only British death recorded at the Heliopolis cemetery that year.

The cemetery at Heliopolis, Cairo in Egypt was opened in October 1941 for burials from the many hospitals in the area coping with the wounded and sick, mainly from the Western Desert campaigns. After the war, 125 graves were moved into the cemetery from Mena Camp Military Cemetery where permanent maintenance was not possible. There are now 1,742 Commonwealth casualties of the Second World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery, and the 83 war graves of other nationalities reflect the diverse makeup of the Middle East Command.