We had an email recently, from Richard Curtis in Kitchener, Ontario, asking why Wing Commander Charles Gray was on the last flight of the Townsend crew, 405 Squadron. For details of the deaths of this crew on 29 July 1944, see our page: REMEMBERING DEREK. Only one body was ever found, that of Colin John
This detail from a photograph shows part of the funeral procession for 405 Squadron members, mostly Canadians, who were buried on 22 December 1943 at Cambridge City Cemetery. At the rear are Bill Bessent (nearest the camera) whose twin brother Bob was amongst those killed, and the one surviving uninjured crewmember from Bob’s crew, Les
Photograph, possibly taken in November 1942, of a Remembrance ceremony at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Great Gransden, Cambridgeshire. The lych gate in the picture is still there today. The central figure is the exiled King Peter of Yugoslavia, in RAF uniform, with his mother Queen Marie standing beside him. The Yugoslavian Royal Family lived in Great
Sometimes it is the smallest items which tell the most. A few old newspaper cuttings, preserved for many years, reveal how greatly Derek Charles Carrott, of the Townsend crew of 405 Squadron, was missed by his family. He was the flight engineer and the only British member of the crew, all of the rest of
