Takeoff at 23:14 hrs local time for an operation to Karlsruhe in Germany.
Outward-bound, the aircraft was shot down by the night fighter crew of Hauptmann Ehle & Oberfeldwebel Leidenbach of the Stab II./NJG 1, who were flying Lichtenstein-equipped Bf 110 F-4 G9+AC from St Trond (Sint-Truiden) airfield.
There was no escape for three crew members. The paltry remains of pilot F/Sgt Ronald G. Lewis (21 years old), the Australian Sgt Robert G. Reynolds (26 years old) and the twenty-year-old gunner Sgt William S. Collins were laid to rest in a collective grave. Their graves can be found today in Heverlee.
Burial of Sgt Collins by the Germans, to Abee, in 1942
