17/06/2026
REMEMBERING COLIN MARRIOTT, DFM: Margaret Austin, nee Marriott, dropped by to place a poppy next to the name of her uncle, Colin Marriott, who was killed when his Lancaster crashed on 12 May 1944.
Pilot Officer Marriott was only 20 years old and the captain of No. 626 Squadron Lancaster JB409/P2 when it took off just before midnight on 11 May for a raid on the Hasselt railway yards in Belgium.
Another Kiwi, navigator James Henry Barton, was aboard with five other crew.
A German night fighter tracked, attacked and shot down the Lancaster at 1am near
Krabbendijke, the Netherlands. The Lancaster hit a d**e and exploded on impact, and no identifiable remains of the seven crew aboard could be recovered.
However, a battle-damaged axe was later recovered from the Lancaster and is on display in our Horizon to Horizon gallery.
Colin was born in Christchurch and was a laboratory technician at the Canterbury Seed Company before he headed away to war.
He’d completed 12 operations and earned the Distinguished Flying Medal before he was lost.
Flight Sergeant James Henry Barton was ā company clerk from Gore and was 21 years old when he died.
Margaret, who lives in North Canterbury, always makes a point of commemorating her uncle Colin when she calls in to our museum.
“We’ve got to remember them, we always remember them,’’ she says.
And she’s right.
