Millar K.C. - The OldWinburnians

    Previous Name                   World War Two Memorial                Next Name

He was the son of John & Margaret Millar and his home was "The Pines", Boveridge Road, Cranborne. However, their address was 'Critchel House' at the time he died. It is not known whether they lived in the main house or a dwelling in the grounds.
Ken took a part in the School Concert on the 16th & 17th of December 1938, when he was in Form Va. He acted as 'Mr. Perkins', in a playlet, "The Grand Cham's Diamonds", in which it was reported that, '...he acted the part of a perplexed and worried husband, very well.' Kenneth gained his School Certificate in the Summer of 1939 and could have enlisted fairly shortly afterwards, certainly, by the early summer of 1940 he was in the Royal Air Force.
He is thought to have quickly volunteered for aircrew duties since, by the end of 1941, he was a Leading Aircraftsman, which probably recognised that he had completed his ground school training. Some of his service took place in North Africa and he was awarded a commission on his return to the U.K.

His aircrew trade  was Bomb Aimer, although the squadron in which he served is not known. When he was killed, he was flying in a Lancaster Mk. lll of No. 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit. Ken was the only officer and probably the most experienced member of the crew. Aircraft from training establishments were sometimes drawn into operational service and that was the situation on the first weekend in March 1945.

On 3-4 March, 200 aircraft attacked a synthetic oil plant at Kamen and another force of more than 200 raided the
Dortmund-Emms Canal, nr. Ladbergen. Aircraft from training units supported these operations and Mosquitoes of the Light Night Striking Force went to Berlin. In addition, just over 30 Lancasters dropped mines into the Oslo Fjord and the Kattegat., whilst 17 more, dropped supplies to resistance groups.
Nearly 200 German JU88 night-fighters were deployed that night in operation "Unternehmen Gisela", with the brief to patrol inland from the Thames Estuary to the moors of Yorkshire. Primarily, as a result of their activity, the R.A.F. lost some 25 aircraft from 785 aircraft which were at or near their bases on returning from a variety of missions. 5 of them were from Heavy Conversion Units.  Ken was in Lancaster Mk lll, BS-K, airframe code ND387, when it was shot down at 0115 and crashed near the airfield at Woolfox Lodge, Rutland. Those who died are interred in cemeteries in England & Scotland. Kenneth rests in the Cambridge City Cemetery * with two others of the crew.

At the time of his death, the School Magazine recorded that, "He will be remembered as a keen and cheerful boy, who always gave of his best to the School."
                     
* NOTE Into this cemetery have been collected the casualties from RAF stations in the Eastern Counties. (Bomber & Fighter Command units in Lincolnshire, Rutland,  Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge.)