James Connelly was born on 15th June 1920 in Glasgow and was the adopted son of Joseph and Catherine Connelly of The Gorbals, Glasgow. He joined the RAF in 1938 and trained as a mechanic. Having re-trained as a flight engineer he probably met the other members of the crew involved in the JD174 incident at a Heavy Conversion Unit prior to posting to 408 Squadron.
Sgt Connelly's page from his logbook detailing the events of 14th July 1943. He was not injured after baling out of Halifax JD174 in July 1943. With his pilot sustaining injuries the rest of the crew were pilotless and this crew appears to have been forced to break apart with many of them taking postings to other operational squadrons. James Connelly was posted to 405 Squadron soon after the incident to JD174. 405 Squadron were a RCAF Pathfinder squadron, generally only the better Bomber Command aircrew received postings to Pathfinder units.
Sgt Connolly joined S/Ldr Murray Stanley Fuller Schneider's crew at 405 Squadron and completed at least ten operational flights with S/Ldr Schneider. On the night of 8th/9th October 1943 he was flying Lancaster JA980 on an operational flight to bomb Hannover. Lancaster JS980 took off from base of Gransden Lodge at 23.15hrs and bombed the target but was shot down by a night-fighter and went on to crash near Rinteln, Germany. Sgt Connelly and one other airmen were able to bale out of the aircraft before it crashed and they ended their War as Prisoners of War. The remaining five airmen did not survive and were killed, they were initially buried in "Steinbergen" but after the War were exhumed as part of the war-grave identification process and re-buried in Hannover War Cemetery, Germany.
Post War Jim Connelly remained in the RAF and served with Transport Command, he finally retired from the RAF in 1968. He emmigrated to Australia where he died on 18th June 2010 in Melbourne.
His pilot at 405 Squadron, S/Ldr Schneider, had originally served with 10 Squadron in 1941 and early 1942. On 16th January 1942 he was returning early from Ops in Halifax L9622 when it crashed near Northallerton. The crash killed six of the seven members on board. Schneider was pulled clear but received terrible injuries; he sustained a fractured skull, numerous broken ribs, a broken wrist, a bullet in his shoulder, and severe burns to his face. It is remarkable that he survived let alone got back in the air. He spent months in hospital recovering but eventually returned to flying, he was almost certainly screened and was acting as a flying instructor when he force landed Halifax W1150 near Pickering on 13th January 1943 and on 26th June 1943 he force landed Halifax V9984 near Brafferton.