LEST WE FORGET
Pilot Officer Clarence Charles BENNETT
From Australia serving in the Royal Air Force
Service No: 42097
Born: Location, Date unavailable
Enlisted in the RAF: 1939
Unit: No. 248 Squadron (RAF)
Died: Air Operations (No. 248 Squadron Blenheim aircraft R3626), North Sea, 1 October 1940, Aged 23 Years
Buried: Unrecovered
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Septimus Bord Bennett and Catherine Minnie Bennett, of Mile End, Adelaide, South Australia
Roll of Honour: Unknown
Remembered: Panel 7, Runnymede Memorial, Surrey UK
Remembered: Commemorative Roll, Australian War Memorial, Canberra
Remembered: Battle of Britain Memorial, Westminster Abbey, London UK
Pilot Officer Bennett was an Australian Cadet accepted for training by the RAF who embarked for the UK on 9 March 1939.
On 1st October 1940 Blenheim R3626 failed to return from a photographic reconnaissance sortie to the coast of Norway from Lister to Stadlandet.
The crew members of R3626 were:
Pilot Officer Clarence Charles Bennett (42097) (RAF) (Pilot)
Sergeant George Brown Brash (639109) (RAF)
Sergeant Gordon Stuart Clarke (747818) (RAFVR)
References:
Australian War Memorial Commemorative Roll On-Line Records
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
McNeill, Ross RAF Coastal Command Loses of the Second World War Volume 1 Aircraft and Aircrew Losses 1939-1941, Midland Publications UK, 2003
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 163/23/68
Newton, Dennis A Few of the Few: Australians and the Battle of Britain, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT 2600, 1990