LEST WE FORGET
Sergeant Howard Sydney STOCKBRIDGE
Service No: 412744
Born: Sydney NSW, 13 September 1917
Enlisted in the RAAF: 20 July 1941
Unit: No. 20 Operational Training Unit (RAF), RAF Station Lossiemouth
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 20 Operational Training Unit Wellington aircraft DV914), off the Scottish Coast, 12 March 1943, Aged 25 Years
Buried: Unrecovered
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Leslie and Priscilla Stockbridge; husband of Helen Jane Stockbridge, of Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Bankstown NSW
Remembered: Panel 197, Runnymede Memorial, Surrey UK
Remembered: Panel 130, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
On 12 March 1943 Wellington DV914 took off from Lossiemouth on an operational training flight between the Mull of Kintyre and Scarpa Island, West Scotland. The route was Base – Tiree – Mull of Kintyre – Scarpa – Base. No signals were received from the aircraft and it failed to return to base from the exercise. An aircraft exercising in the vicinity of the Island of Tiree was seen by Air Sea Rescue launches to spin into the sea from a height of 10,000 feet. It was also separately reported that an RAF Corporal and a civilian had seen an aircraft crash into the sea off the West coast of
Scotland and this was considered by the unit to be DV914. Following post war enquiries and investigations, it was recorded in 1949 that the missing crew members had lost their lives at sea.
The crew members of DV914 were:
Sergeant Patrick John Fitzgerald (414548) (Second Navigator)
Sergeant John Henry William McDonagh (420978) (Bomb Aimer)
Sergeant Geoffrey Eli Morris (1230528) (RAFVR) (Pilot)
Sergeant Thomas Robinson (1080327) (RAFVR) (Wireless Operator Air Gunner)
Sergeant Howard Sydney Stockbridge (412744) (Air Gunner)
Sergeant Stuart Ronald Wright (414371) (Navigator)
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veterans’ Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/38/66