LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Paul Daubeny BATEMAN
Service No: 424720
Born: Leeton NSW, 2 November 1923
Enlisted in the RAAF: 9 October 1942
Unit: No. 69 Squadron (RAF), B58 Airfield, Belgium
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 69 Squadron Wellington aircraft HE759), Belgium, 21 November 1944, Aged 21 Years
Buried: Heverlee War Cemetery, Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Charles Daubeny Bateman, M.B., Ch.M., and Dorothea Gladys Bateman, of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Windsor NSW
Remembered: Panel 118, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Remembered: Windsor Memorial Park Gates, Windsor NSW
On 21 November 1944 Wellington HZ759 was detailed to carry out a night time non-operational exercise. The aircraft failed to return from the exercise. The aircraft crashed about five miles from B58 and all the crew members were killed. A Court of Inquiry could not find a cause for the accident but reported “at 17.10 hours in daylight, the aircraft was seen to dive into the ground off a radar rate one turn to the left. Flight Sergeant Bateman was a very sound and reliable pilot who would not lose his head in an emergency.”
The crew members of HE759 were:
Flight Sergeant Paul Daubeny Bateman (424720) (Pilot)
Sergeant John Newport Croker (1395236) (RAFVR) (Air Bomber)
Flight Sergeant Leonard Charles Grieb (1324000) (RAFVR) (Navigator Bomb Aimer)
Flight Sergeant William Edward Kain (1420740) (RAFVR) (Air Gunner)
Sergeant Robert Moyes (1827081) (RAFVR) (Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant James Ralph Patterson (1604306) (RAFVR) (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, 166/5/831
Register of War Memorials in New South Wales On-Line