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D F C

Son of Charles Edward and Euphemia Mabel Suffren, of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.

An Australian RAAF navigator Charles Edward Suffren whose plane was hit by German anti-aircraft fire and crashed near Ale on 10th April 1944 was abducted from the municipal hospital by the Germans.  Of the aircrafts crew of seven, five were killed at the crash site. Charles Suffren was so badly hurt that he died some months later. The only other survivor Stanley Hodge survived and returned to Australia after the war.

Charles Suffren was found 3 to 4 hours after the crash in a critical condition.  He was treated by a doctor who ordered him to be sent to the municipal hospital in Horsens.  At the examination it was found that Suffren had incurred a fracture of the vertebral column together with other serious injuries. The doctors struggled to save his life.

Some 2 to 3 days after he had been admitted to the hospital the Germans demanded Suffren to be surrendered. The doctors refused to do so because the young Australian could not be moved without endangering his life. When the Germans maintained their demand Suffren turned his head towards the doctor and said “This is the war. They don’t know what they are doing those idiots”

When Charles Suffren was taken away the doctors and the nurses formed a lane in honour of this brave soldier and they gave him chocolate and flowers.

The German abduction of Charles Suffren was soon known in Denmark and it aroused a storm of indignation.  This caused the Germans to insert a picture in the local papers and from the accompanying caption it appeared that Charles Suffren was not dead but had received proper treatment. 

Charles Suffren’s name together with the rest of the crew is engraved on a monument later erected near Ale Denmark.  Charles Suffren had a fine morale.

Charles Suffren died on 16th February 1945 as a prisoner of war in a hospital near Frankfurt Germany.  A British RAF officer who was also a POW and had met Charles wrote a letter to Charles Suffren’s brother which said among other things 

“I was at once attracted by his fine morale and his philosophical attitude towards his injuries and slow recovery.  A large piece of shrapnel had hit him in the back and given him several injuries.

Had Charles survived the injuries it is likely he would have been paralysed from his hip down for the rest of his life.  The German doctors and nurses fought hard for him just as they would have done for one of their own.

His morale was the finest to his last minute and everyone who came in contact with Charles Suffren, Germans, Americans and English alike, had the highest respect for his courage and his rare struggle for life.

Your brother was a fine chap and a great example of the best Australian.  May the Lord be with his soul.  Please accept our deepest sympathy with your great loss.”

[Edited by Graham Padget from an article in the Danish newspapers of 1969 and forwarded by the Australian Danish Consul to National Archives of Australia records]

Lancaster ME663 of 460 Squadron RAAF based at RAF Binbrook was shot down by a German night-fighter / anti-aircraft fire after a mission to lay mines in the Baltic and crashed near the town of Aale in Denmark

Flight Sergeant Frederick Stanley Hodge DFM 426100 was taken Prisoner and survived the war

Flying Officer Charles Edward Suffren DFC 409280 survived but with severe injuries; he passed away in a Luftwaffe Military hospital in Germany 10 months after the crash and is buried in Durnbach Cemetery in Germany (he is referred to in Volume 9 of “Bomber Command Losses” by Chorley)

The 5 crewmen that were killed in the crash are buried in Esbjerg (Fourfelt) Cemetery in Denmark

CHAPMAN, Leslie Harold (Flight Sergeant) 410641

CROSBY, Peter Alan (Flight Lieutenant) DFC 416656

BILLETT, Clive (Flight Sergeant) 414191

ROBB, Laurence William (Flying Officer) 418879

BENDER, Milton Harold (Pilot Officer) DFC 173405 RAF