HARRY "CHERRY" CARTER
460 SQUADRON RAAF

29 different pilots flew "G" for George during its operational career. My father-in-law Jan (John) Goulevitch flew it on one operation on 6 Sep 1943 to Munich. However, the pilot with the greatest number of operations in "G" for George was Pilot Officer "Cherry" Carter and his crew. In fact, "Cherry" Carter flew "G" for George on 21 operations.

Harry acquired his nickname "Cherry" because of his shock of red hair. I was very privileged to meet "Cherry" Carter at the Anzac Day march in Brisbane on 25 April 2000.

"Cherry" Carter flew the following missions in "G" for George:-

The last operation over Berlin on Christmas Eve on 1943 marked a milestone for "Cherry" and his crew. It was the completion of their 30 operations. Keith Harris, the bomb aimer on that mission recounted in an article in "The Sunday Mail" on 12 September 1999, that there was quite a fuss when they landed after this final operation.

"Everybody came out to see us because, apart from the fact that I don't think anybody had survived 30 operations for quite a while - it was a sort of rarity for anybody to get through - we finished over Berlin."

"Cherry" Carter with his daughter

Subject:    460 Squadron-Ross Carter
Date:             Wed, 10 Nov 1999 09:01:52 +1000
From:          "Heather Wigham" <heatherw@powerup.com.au>

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Dunn
To: <Heatherw@powerup.com.au>
Sent: Monday, 4 October 1999 9:39
Subject: 460 Squadron

> Gidday,

> I just looked at my Guestbook on 460 Squadron home page and found your message.
> I don't often look there, so have only just found it. Glad you liked the site.

> Is your father "Cherry" Carter?

Hello Peter,

I thought I'd let you know that Ross got your email. Yes, his father is "Cherry Carter", who is living on the Gold Coast now.

Thanks for your web site address. I'm adding it to Ross' list of "favourites" so he can look it all up when he gets time.

Heather (Ross' other half)

Subject:    Cherry Carter's crew
Date:             Fri, 28 Apr 2000 04:30:03 -0700
From:           rigr@geko.net.au

Peter,

Noticed the crew in the recent email update. There was a P/O Coveny in the crew of my uncle Eric Greenacre's last sortie over Emmerich on 7.10.44. In the 460 Operations Record book he is shown as:

A412914 F/O Coveny R.C.

and from Eric's log book address his home address was:

93 Tarcutta St Wagga Wagga NSW

I wonder if anything more is known about him - he is the only one of Eric's crew I have ever seen in a photograph.

Rgds Roger

Can anyone help Roger with info on F/O R.C. Coveny?

Subject:    Cherry Carter's crew
Date:            Sun, 30 Apr 2000 16:41:57 -0700
From:           Michael Nelmes

Roger / Peter

Bob Coveny lived at least into the early 1980s. Here's an extract from my 'G for George' manuscript that might interest you:-

By October 1944, 460 Squadron was conducting daylight as well as night operations. At two o'clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon that month, the Lancaster of former G for George crewmen Keith Harris and Bob Coveny (now six flights into their second operational tour) was struck by incendiary bombs falling from a bomber above and the port outer engine caught fire.

All the crew were able to bail out. Harris, descending under his parachute, was fired on by light flak from a German Army camp before landing in the top of 'a bloody great pine tree', and surrounded by frontline troops. He was interrogated at Frankfurt by a junior German section officer with a revolver, who demanded to know about the British H2S radar; and for the rest of the war he joined several other G for George crewmen at Stalag Luft III, a large prisoner of war camp isolated among pine forests near the town of Sagan, Poland. The camp, founded in April 1943, housed some 10,000 of the ever increasing number of aircrew prisoners. Some months before Harris' arrival, just after G for George's last operation in April 1944, the boards under the prisoners' beds had been used to line underground tunnels for what became known as 'the Great Escape'. Of eighty allied prisoners who escaped, fifty including three Australians were shot on Hitler's order, and only three made it back to England. Escape attempts were normally dealt with less harshly than in this case, with two or three weeks in the 'cooler' (prison).

Regards
Mike Nelmes
AWM

Subject:    Cherry Carter's crew
Date:            Sun, 30 Apr 2000 17:17:00 -0700
From:           Michael Nelmes

Forgot to mention - there is a Carter crew photo including Bob Coveny and Keith Harris in the War Memorial photo collection -

www.awm.gov.au - click on databases, photographs, and enter negative number 069823.

Regards
Mike Nelmes
AWM

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This page first produced 27 April 2000

This page last updated 21 February 2020