Flight Lieutenant Jack Dark, navigator and bomb aimer in the wartime Pathfinder Force

Flight Lieutenant Jack Dark, who has died aged 102, flew as a navigator/bomb aimer in a Lancaster of Bomber Command’s Pathfinder Force when he completed 28 operations over occupied Europe.

Following a detailed study into the effectiveness and accuracy of the bombing by Bomber Command aircraft, several key measures were introduced to improve accuracy. One was the creation of a Pathfinder Force under the command of Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennet, a highly experienced pilot and long-distance navigator. 

Squadrons, manned by experienced bomber crews, had the task of identifying and accurately marking aiming points for the following main bomber force to bomb. A second development was to introduce more accurate navigation and bomb-aiming aids; these included the ground-mapping H2S radar carried by some of the heavy bombers.

Dark and his crew had already completed several missions when they were transferred to 83 Squadron of the Pathfinder Force in January 1945. It was Dark’s responsibility to identify the bomb release point using his H2S radar and drop flares or markers to assist the aiming of the main bomber force.

When Dark and his crew joined the squadron, the Combined Chiefs of Staff had ordered an all-out attack on oil and transportation targets. Over the next three months, Dark attacked 14 targets: eight were against synthetic oil plants and three were against the Mitteland and the Dortmund-Ems canals. On February 13, he marked an aiming point for the attack on Dresden and on March 22, the oil refinery at Hamburg was his target.

On April 25, Bomber Command made its final attack of the war with its heavy bomber force. The target was the oil refinery at Tonsberg near Oslo, and this proved to be Dark’s 28th and final operation of the war.

Jack Wilfred Dark was born on August 11 1923 at Sedgewick, near Horsham. He attended Oxford Road School before leaving aged 14 to join Horsham Rural District Council as a junior clerk.

He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) in March 1942 and trained as a navigator in South Africa. On return to the UK, he trained to be a bomb aimer on heavy bombers and, after converting to the Lancaster, joined 106 Squadron at Metheringham near Lincoln in October 1944.

With his Australian pilot, he flew his first operation on October 28 when he dropped mines in the Drammen Fjord, Oslo. After attacking Heilbronn on December 4, his Lancaster was attacked by a Junkers 88 night fighter. After taking evasive action, the two air gunners managed to shoot down the enemy aircraft. Dark later attacked the Urft Dam and on December 18, shipping in the distant port of Gdynia on the Baltic coast was the target on a round trip lasting 10 hours. In January 1945, Dark and his crew transferred to 83 Squadron.

During the time Dark was serving on his two squadrons, over 100 Lancasters and their crews, each with seven young men, were lost on operations. He remarked that “it was a constant reminder of how vulnerable we were.”

Many years later, during the making of a documentary film, A Memory Owed, featuring the actor James Bolam, Dark made the comment: “It was out of this world really, seeing all the anti-aircraft fire coming up and the flares and fires on the ground. I don’t think I used to think much of what was happening down there.”

After the war, Dark returned to work for Horsham Council, retiring as the assistant financial planning officer after 45 years’ service. For many years he was the clerk to the Nuthurst and Lower Beeding Parish Councils.

He was an avid cricketer, playing for NALGO, the Leatherhunters, and Nuthurst Cricket Club, where he was captain for many years until 1983. He was also a keen footballer.

Dark rarely spoke of his wartime experience but in recent years he did so, featuring in Sky TV’s film Lancaster and in the Channel 4 documentary Guy Martin’s Lost WW2 Bomber.

Jack Dark married his wife Pat, a former WAAF who served on a gun emplacement in Antwerp in the latter part of the Second World War, on September 29 1951 and she died in September 2021. He is survived by their son.

Jack Dark, born August 11 1923, died November 28 2025

[Source: Daily Telegraph]