LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Sydney George RICKERSEY
Service No: 420272
Born: Sydney NSW, 23 May 1914
Enlisted in the RAAF: 11 October 1941
Unit: No. 11 Operational Training Unit (RAF), RAF Station Westcott, Buckinghamshire
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 11 Operational Training Unit Wellington aircraft R1451), Oxfordshire, 2 September 1943, Aged 29 Years
Buried: Oxford (Botley) Cemetery, Oxfordshire
CWGC Additional Information: Son of George James Rickersey and Ann Alice Rickersey, of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; husband of Ellen Mary Rickersey, of Waverley, New South Wales
Roll of Honour: Sydney NSW
Remembered: Panel 129, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
On 2 September 1943 Wellington R1451 took off from RAF Westcott for a night bombing training exercise. The aircraft crashed at 2145 hours between Knightsbridge Farm and Model Farm to the west of Pyrton, a small village less than a mile north of Watlington, Oxfordshire. All five crew members were killed.
The crew members of R1451 were:
Sergeant Ronald John Clifford (424119) (Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Kenneth George Fitzgerald (422640) (Navigator)
Pilot Officer Stanley Maxwell Johnston (425166) (Air Bomber)
Sergeant Francis William Nixon (1134784) (RAFVR) (Wireless Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Sydney George Rickersey (420272) (Pilot)
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, 166/35/139