Date:	Sunday 7 January 1945
Time:	22:30
Type:	Avro Lancaster Mk III
Owner/operator:	635 Sqn RAF
Registration:	PB173
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 7 / Occupants: 7
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Unterpfaffenhofen, Bayern -   Germany
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Downham Market
Destination airport:	RAF Downham Market

Narrative:
During the night of 7-8 January 1945 645 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitoes of 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8 Groups, RAF Bomber Command, attacked Munich and claimed a successful area raid, with severe damage to the central and some industrial areas. This was the last major raid on Munich. 11 Lancaster were lost and four more crashed in France.

Returning RAF crew reported a mid-air collision between two Lancasters at around 2230 hrs:
22:28 hrs, Munich area, "Approx 100/200 yards N. slightly above 2 Lancs seen converging and then collide with violent exposion and burning debris seen falling."
22:36 hrs, Munich, "Two Lanc seen to collide. Both blew up and then went down in flames."

These reports probably are about the same event, the air collision between the Lancaster III PB229 LQ-X of 405 Sqn RCAF and the Lancaster III PB173 F2-C of 635 Sqn RAF. According to German documents both crashed at 2230 hrs at Unterpfaffenhofen, 19 km SSE from the centre of Nürnberg, in fighter grid reference DC 6 (wrongly noted as DC 4 in the German documents). There was no survivor.

Crew:-
Pilot : Flight Lieutenant Robert Mayo Clarke RAAF Aus/427294 [Killed]
Flight Engineer : Flight Sergeant Thomas Robertshaw RAFVR 1592154 [Killed]
Navigator : Pilot Officer William Thomas Pethard RAFVR 185214 [Killed] (NCO:1622858 Commission Gazetted : Tuesday 14 November, 1944)
Bomb Aimer : Pilot Officer Geoffrey Kenneth Hendy RAAF Aus/410980 [Killed]
Wireless Operator : Flight Sergeant Charles Denis Mountain RAFVR 1621552 [Killed]
Mid-Upper Gunner : Pilot Officer Alexander Anderson Wiggins RAFVR 185673 (NCO:1573357 Commission Gazetted : Tuesday 14 November, 1944)[Killed]
Rear Gunner : Flight Sergeant James Hendry Watson RAFVR 1566050 [Killed]

Watson and Wiggins are buried in Dürnbach War cemetery. The other have no known grave and are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.

http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?10068-Lancaster-collision-night-of-7-8-Jan-1945-Unterpfaffenhofen
"The Bomber Command War Diaries", by Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt, ISBN 1-85780-033-8
"Royal Air Force Bomber Command losses, vol 6. Aircraft and Crews Losses 1945", by W R Chorley, ISBN 0-904597-92-X
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germering
http://www.maplandia.com/germany/bayern/oberbayern/furstenfeldbruck/unterpfaffenhofen/
Rob Davis Bomber Command Losses Database

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
25-Aug-2013 13:40	JINX	Added
21-May-2016 06:06	Red Dragon	Updated [Cn, Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Location, Country, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
23-Oct-2018 20:32	nepa	Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Operator]
02-Jan-2019 11:32	Laurent Rizzotti	Updated [Date, Time, Cn, Location, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]