Qualla: Ted Swales

Ted Swales: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On the morning of 23 February 1945, Major Edwin "Ted" Swales opened the London Gazette and saw his Distinguished Flying Cross officially listed. That same night, leading the bombing raid on Pforzheim as Master Bomber of 367 Lancasters and 13 Mosquitos, he flew his crippled aircraft long enough for every member of his crew to bail out into friendly territory - then died trying to land it. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the third and last RAF Pathfinder pilot to be so honored. His remains lie today in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Leopoldsburg, in Belgian Limburg, Plot 8, Row C, Grave 5: a South African from Natal at rest in a Belgian pine wood, a hundred kilometers from where his Lancaster came down.

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla

Ted Swales: Heatonville to the Berea

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Edwin Essery Swales was born on 3 July 1915 in Inanda, Natal, one of four children of Harry Evelyn Swales, a Heatonville district farmer, and Olive Miriam Essery. His father died in the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, leaving Olive to raise four young children alone. The family moved...

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla

Ted Swales: From the Mounted Rifles to the air

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

With the Natal Mounted Rifles, Swales fought through the East African campaign in Kenya and Abyssinia, and then north into the desert war. On 17 January 1942 he transferred to the South African Air Force. The rugby came with him: he turned out for Griquas during his pilot trainin...

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla

Ted Swales: Cologne, 23 December

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 23 December 1944, a few weeks after his promotion to captain, Swales flew as Number Two Pathfinder on a daylight raid against the Gremberg railway yards in Cologne. The Squadron Leader leading the operation was his close friend Robert Palmer, an RAF officer who normally flew M...

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla

Ted Swales: Pforzheim

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pforzheim was a German jewelry-manufacturing city near Karlsruhe whose industrial output had drawn RAF Bomber Command's attention late in the war. On the night of 23 February 1945, 367 Lancasters and 13 Mosquitos struck the target from a relatively low 8,000 feet. The bombing was...

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla

Ted Swales: The long glide west

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Lancaster III PB538 was attacked over the target by a Bf 110 night fighter. Cannon fire shattered one engine and holed the fuel tanks. The same fighter found them again and knocked out a second engine. Swales chose not to bail out over enemy territory; he turned the wounded aircr...

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla

Ted Swales: Leopoldsburg

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Swales was originally buried at the Fosses USA Cemetery. After the war his remains were reinterred at Leopoldsburg War Cemetery in Belgian Limburg, which lies northeast of Diest and gathers the dead from many Allied operations across this part of the Low Countries. Air Chief Mars...

Read more: Ted Swales on Qualla