Having spent six months at Church Broughton Derbyshire at 27 Operational training Unit Wally signed up for a second tour and was posted to 1661 Conversion Unit at Winthorpe and 5 group Lancaster Finishing school at Syerston where he crewed up with six Australians.

With 463 Squadron based at Waddington these seven men formed a partnership which was to carry all of them through 20 more operations from July 1944 to February 1945.

The crew consisted of:-

S/L H W Radford Pilot

F/O W J Smith Flight Engineer

F/O J M Stewart Navigator

P/O H I Howard Bomb Aimer

F/O J Samuels Wirless Operator

F/O V G Heath Mid Upper Gunner

F/O W Osmotherly Rear Gunner

Flying Officer W J Smith

In August 1944 Wally gained his commission and was promoted to Flying Officer.

On the night of July 24th 1944 Wally and the six Austrailians who made up the rest of the crew set off for a night raid on Stuttgart, the first sortie of Wally's second tour.

Fifteen of these operations were night raids, the remaining five were the only daylight raids Wally carried out during both tours.

On this second tour the crew had a very narrow escape during a raid on Koenigsberg on the night of August 29th 1944. The Lancaster they were flying LM242 JO-Y came under attack from a Junkers 88. Fortunately thanks to some expert flying by Bill Radford they were able to escape serious damage and return to Waddington having successfully bomed the target!

Combat report 29-30th August 1944

HALF WAY THROUGH SECOND TOUR ON THE NORTH PIER AT BLACKPOOL 

SEPTEMBER1943

This was the last time the crew saw LM242 as she was shot down over Frankfurt on 12th September. Because of this loss Wally's crew took possession of a new Lancaster PD330 which became the new JO-F. PD330 carried the crew safely through the remaining 11 operations of the tour.

One of those raids was the longest in time that Wally flew on during his career with Bomber Command, a 10 hour 15 minute raid on Politz during January 1945. His previous visit to Politz some three weeks earlier was also memorable in the fact that in his 51 ops' this was the only time Waly failed to return to base. On returning from this riad on the morning of 22nd December 1943 the fog was so heavy over cerntral England that trhe crew was ordered to land at Lossiemouth. They were able to take the 2 hr.15 min. journey back to Waddington the following day, and get home for Christmas!

On the evening of 7th February 1945 Wally set out on his last sortie of his second tour, a raid on the Dortmund Ems Canal. Six hours and 10 minutes later he landed back at Waddington his last raid completed.

So just three weeks short of his 25th birthday he had completed 51 raids over occupied territory amounting to over 300 operational flying hours!

Wally and his second tour crew (all Austrailians) on completion of their second tour.

The crew at this time had a combined sortie total exceeding 320! 

                          ( Eigth member of crew believed to be FL A C Winston) 

 A view of The Dortmunds Ems Canal a welcome sight for Wally's 51st and last sortie.