LEST WE FORGET
Pilot Officer Peter HAYES
From Australia serving in the Royal New Zealand Air Force
Service No: 404484 (RNZAF)
Born: Date, Location unavailable
Enlisted in the RNZAF: Date unavailable
Unit: No. 156 Squadron (RAF), RAF Station Warboys
Died: Air Operations: (No. 156 Squadron Wellington II aircraft X3367), Germany, 27 August 1942, Aged 20 Years
Buried: Reichswald Forest War Cemetery
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Joseph Patrick Hayes and of Mizpah Hayes (nee Hanna), of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Unknown
At 2026 hours on 27 August 1942 Wellington X3367 took-off from Warboys to attack Kassel, Germany. The aircraft was shot down by a night-fighter and at 2325 hours crashed onto the Laurenz Textile Factory at Epe, 4 km south of Gronau, Germany. All the crew members were killed.
The crew members of X3367 were:
Pilot Officer Peter Hayes (404484) (RNZAF) (Observer)
Sergeant Gilbert Hebblethwaite (657350) (RAFVR) (Second Pilot)
Pilot Officer Jack Leewarden (132751) (RAFVR) (Wireless Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Michael Gordon Savage (930778) (RAFVR) (Pilot)
Sergeant Frederick Valentine Herbert Shepherd (629714) (RAF) (Air Gunner)
Pilot Officer Gerald Cecil William Stone MID (49988) (RAF) (Wireless Air Gunner)
References:
Chorley W R, Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Volume 3 Aircraft and Aircrew Losses 1942, Midland Counties Publications UK, 1994
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records