LEST WE FORGET
Flying Officer Robert Balmain CAMPBELL
Service No: 400025
Born: Wagga Wagga NSW, 18 May 1914
Enlisted in the RAAF: 29 April 1940 (at Melbourne VIC)
Unit: No. 15 Squadron (RAF), RAF Station Wyton
Died: Air Operations: (No. 15 Squadron Stirling aircraft N6038), North Sea, 23 July 1941, Aged 27 Years
Buried: Unrecovered
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Robert Balmain Campbell and Edith Jessie Campbell, of Camberwell, Victoria, Australia
Roll of Honour: Wagga Wagga NSW
Remembered: Panel 62, Runnymede Memorial, Surrey UK
Remembered: Panel 120, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Remembered: Tarcutta War Memorial Hall Honour Rolls, Tarcutta NSW
Remembered: Victory Memorial Gardens Cenotaph, Wagga Wagga NSW
At 1805 hours on 23 July 1941 Stirling N6038 took off from Wyton to attack the German Battleship Scharnhorst. Nothing further was heard from the aircraft. In 1950 it was established that the body of Pilot Officer Lewis had been washed ashore on the island of Amrum, and buried in the Kiel British War Cemetery. It was assumed that the aircraft came down in the North Sea and that the remaining six crew members were lost at sea.
The crew members of N6038 were:
Flying Officer Robert Balmain Campbell (400025) (Pilot)
Flight Sergeant William Cockburn (614847) (RAF)
Sergeant George Thomas Friend (549040) (RAF)
Pilot Officer Donald Alfred Lewis (40193) (RNZAF)
Sergeant Arthur John Mitchell (902967) (RAFVR)
Pilot Officer John Henry Eric Warner (102984) (RAF)
Sergeant Arthur Ronald Norman Whitcher (751366) (RAFVR)
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, 163/25/80
Register of War Memorials in New South Wales On-Line