LEST WE FORGET

Flight Sergeant Reginald Gordon LUGTON

Service No: 428278
Born: Bunyip VIC, 9 January 1924
Enlisted in the RAAF: 9 October 1942
Unit: No. 1667 Conversion Unit (RAF), RAF Station Sandtoft
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 1667 Conversion Unit Halifax aircraft DG395), Yorkshire, 26 June 1944, Aged 20 Years
Buried: Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery, Yorkshire
CWGC Additional Information: Son of William Harold and Myrtle Florence Lugton, of Modella, Victoria, Australia
Roll of Honour: Modella VIC
Remembered: Panel 126, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT

At 0036 hours on the 26 June 1944, Halifax DG395 took off from Sandtoft for an exercise in night bombing combined with circuit practice. Ten minutes later the authorities were notified that the aircraft had crashed in open country on Willows Farm, some two miles east of Thorne, Yorkshire. It was believed that the aircraft had collided with a line of high-tension cables approximately 25 feet high. The aircraft carried a crew of six and all the crew members were killed.

The crew members of DG395 were:

Sergeant James Stuart Cherry (2209539) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer)
Flight Sergeant Reginald Gordon Lugton (428278) (Wireless Air Gunner)
Sergeant Edward Smallbone (906002) (RAFVR) (Air Bomber)
Pilot Officer George Neville Conyngham Smyth (141352) (RAFVR) (Pilot)
Pilot Officer Edgar Charles Splane (154056) (RAFVR) (Navigator)
Sergeant Bruce Herbert Yates (1895282) (RAFVR) (Second Flight Engineer)

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, 166/25/171

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