Tag: Reichswald Forest War Cemetery

Fernley Graham Chilcott: Rear Gunner of No. 10 Squadron

Early Life and Family

Fernley Graham Chilcott was born on 15 March 1921 at Black Torrington, Devon, the son of Harry Harris Chilcott and Florence Elizabeth Philp. His birth was registered in the Holsworthy district during the second quarter of 1921, and the 1921 census records him at Broad Street, Black Torrington, aged six months. [1]

Fernley’s early years were rooted in rural north Devon, but by the opening of the Second World War he was living in the Crediton area. The 1939 Register records him as an eighteen-year-old single man at Port Holes, Crediton, employed as a baker’s roundsman. This was practical local work, involving the delivery of bread and other goods to homes and businesses, and it gives a glimpse of the civilian future that war would interrupt. [1]

His parents were later recorded as living at Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon. Fernley did not marry and had no children. The documentary record therefore preserves his story principally through his parents’ home, his RAF service and the shared fate of the seven-man crew with whom he flew on his final operation. [1]

At eighteen, Fernley Chilcott was delivering bread in Devon; four years later, he was a Sergeant air gunner flying night operations over Germany.

Military Service

Fernley enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve after June 1940, apparently at Blackpool. He served as Sergeant 1303121, trained as an air gunner and became a rear gunner in RAF Bomber Command. The RAF Volunteer Reserve enabled civilians to join for wartime service, providing the aircrew needed to expand Britain’s offensive air campaign against Germany. [1]

By 1943, Sergeant Chilcott was posted to No. 10 Squadron, part of No. 4 Group, RAF Bomber Command. The squadron had moved to RAF Melbourne, Yorkshire, on 19 August 1942 and remained there until the end of the war in Europe. It had converted to Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers in December 1941 and operated the type throughout the remainder of the conflict. [2][3][1]

Fernley’s aircraft was Handley Page Halifax B Mark II Series I (Special) JD272, code ZA-F. The Halifax was a four-engined heavy bomber powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and used extensively by Bomber Command in night operations. A typical Halifax crew consisted of seven men: pilot, flight engineer, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, mid-upper gunner and rear gunner. [1]

As rear gunner, Fernley occupied the isolated tail turret at the rear of the aircraft. From there he maintained a crucial lookout, warned the crew of approaching fighters and operated the turret’s guns in defence of the bomber. It was a role that demanded alertness, courage and calm decision-making during long night flights, especially when aircraft were attacked by German night fighters. [1]

No. 10 Squadron’s Role

No. 10 Squadron’s motto, Rem acu tangere, may be translated as “to hit the mark”. During 1943, its role within No. 4 Group was to contribute Halifax bombers and trained crews to Bomber Command’s Main Force: the large formations dispatched for night attacks on industrial, transport and urban targets in Germany. [1]

RAF Melbourne was a wartime bomber station in Yorkshire, well placed for operations over occupied Europe and Germany. From this base, No. 10 Squadron’s crews prepared, took off and returned—when they could—from sorties that often lasted many hours. The work required a vast ground organisation of fitters, armourers, riggers, wireless staff, bomb loaders, fuel crews and administrative personnel, alongside the airmen who flew the aircraft. [4][1]

In September and October 1943, Bomber Command mounted a series of attacks on Hanover, later described as the Battle of Hanover. The city was a major industrial and railway centre, making it an important target within the strategic bombing campaign. These raids formed part of the wider effort to disrupt German war production and transport while placing pressure on the German population and civil-defence system. [5][1]

The campaign came at severe cost to the RAF. The RAF’s own historical material notes that the second major Hanover attack, on 27/28 September 1943, cost Bomber Command thirty-eight aircraft—5.6 per cent of the force dispatched—with losses particularly heavy among Halifax and Stirling units. [5]

The Hanover Operation

On the night of 27/28 September 1943, Fernley and the other men of Halifax JD272 took off from RAF Melbourne for Hanover. The operation was a night raid under only two per cent moonlight, conditions intended to reduce exposure to visual detection but which also made navigation, formation flying and evasion more difficult. [1]

Bomber Command dispatched 678 aircraft, including 312 Lancasters, 231 Halifaxes, 111 Stirlings, 24 Wellingtons and five American B-17s. The raid’s bombing was concentrated, but Pathfinder Force marking proved inaccurate and comparatively little significant damage was inflicted on the intended target. Thirty-eight Bomber Command aircraft and one B-17 failed to return. [6][5][1]

Halifax JD272 carried a crew of seven: Sergeant John Rostron, pilot; Sergeant John William H. H. Barratt, flight engineer; Sergeant William H. G. B. McIntosh, navigator; Sergeant John W. A. McDonald, bomb aimer; Sergeant John H. W. Smith, wireless operator; Sergeant George E. H. S. Hales, mid-upper gunner; and Sergeant Fernley Graham Chilcott, rear gunner. Their interdependent roles made them a close operational team, reliant upon each man’s skill during every stage of the sortie. [1]

Fernley Chilcott and the six men of Halifax JD272 left Melbourne together for Hanover; none returned.

Circumstances of Death

On the return leg from Hanover, Halifax JD272 was intercepted and shot down by a Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighter flown by Hauptmann August Geiger of 7./Nachtjagdgeschwader 1. The aircraft crashed near Wippingen in Lower Saxony, Germany. All seven members of the crew were killed. [7][1]

Sergeant Fernley Graham Chilcott died on 27 September 1943, aged twenty-two. The date shown in official commemoration reflects the operational date on which the aircraft left England, although the loss occurred during the overnight raid of 27/28 September. His death was recorded as killed in action. [8][1]

The loss of JD272 was one small part of a major raid, but for the families of its seven crewmen it was an individual catastrophe. Their aircraft’s destruction also illustrates the danger of the German night-defence system. Night fighters, radar control, searchlights and anti-aircraft guns posed sustained threats to bomber crews, particularly during the long and vulnerable homeward flight after leaving the target area.

Burial and Commemoration

Fernley was buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, near Kleve in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in grave 14.C.21. He rests with the other members of the crew of Halifax JD272, giving their shared wartime service a permanent physical memorial. [1]

His headstone identifies him as “1303121 Sergeant F. G. Chilcott, Air Gunner, Royal Air Force”, records his death on 27 September 1943 at the age of twenty-two and bears the inscription: “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.” [1]

Reichswald Forest War Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in Germany. It contains 7,594 Commonwealth burials from the Second World War, including many airmen and soldiers whose graves were brought together from smaller cemeteries and battlefield burials after the war. [1]

Legacy

Fernley Graham Chilcott’s life joined rural Devon with the international conflict fought in the skies above Europe. Born in Black Torrington, working in Crediton and remembered by his parents in Cheriton Fitzpaine, he became part of the generation of young men who volunteered for aircrew service during the Second World War. [1]

His story also conveys the reality of Bomber Command service. The large force sent to Hanover on 27/28 September 1943 represented formidable industrial and military organisation, yet its cost was measured in individual crews and families. Fernley’s role as rear gunner placed him at the point of direct defence against enemy fighters, and the destruction of JD272 illustrates the sustained risk faced by every Halifax crew crossing occupied Europe. [5][1]

He left no spouse or children, but his name survives in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission record, at Reichswald Forest War Cemetery and in the records of No. 10 Squadron and Bomber Command. Together, they preserve the memory of a Devon baker’s roundsman who became an RAF Volunteer Reserve Sergeant and was killed with his comrades during a hazardous night operation over Germany. [1]

Sources and Further Reading

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Fernley-Graham-Chilcott.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/3e253a33-2828-4c05-93bc-dc678f0c2d83/Individual-Report-for-Fernley-Graham-Chilcott.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYEVGMBE3D6&Signature=pTqGCPMAioPNSci%2BzcuvR1AFpk0%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEDEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCIHj%2F6f7GB0foUZW75GCqnZXF3ia%2FHOUShRxtnU7BY9NxAiAyjj0di0e8dG03N4mRFLjm8AytRU%2FNdS0OKnYUcu3kniqDBQj6%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F8BEAEaDDY5OTc1MzMwOTcwNSIM3%2FEQUYVLfSOLTpUNKtcENnZOY%2FgPwB%2Bs10IyUYbcwf14S4qCAoVICl405UBFJcyC8ixehHHtj8MUTekyqwOgpe3y8xpzeWmQ86Le17iO87wtQVaVn%2Bw79WiX%2FZhJbwa33cJEIW6I4R%2Fip6R2SBOuIRqQzNG5K0T%2BCHlVMOMUaCg0ZHs0vII1fZEVojiTBvuV3YG9APcoygy%2BjwramgNqt97rq9rFAzVrRygNPzU1N9kqoJZMmvnUeFCLyxoktQtE8t2J0QMWX1gRn8ZxamqAS3gaQ38Vq247NYrH3BLIw2%2FaJCbyduEuvIR2CuvlJaJrXQN%2FOi4TYBDH3W82lUevKNtW4xgyV5HbaD6YftrCTE2CuEez2SkSwCS1VgeYy780Vv2Mv%2F%2F5tCMJZWDDyywJGbehCONqCci83wi%2Bum34RqVgrEu%2FQhb75Chpd09Wpthp9w00T62ICV6HSU1ntfKNGfOGNgBNoNUiondVAMOFy119EQ7CskXksdCS5N4jMbJKCQm3BxjCg3bBcuf6Y%2BhMJtQq1i7VtIAkmlN7An7f%2B3%2BW2jCtO9KuP%2Fq4%2BDjFXYch7Qcowz%2FSI6CU16cil9weBs7E1D09nx1OAIUyxa7AWzGF0ruihueYO%2FAkip82H%2F%2B6QqqI2XiQt6usAL4pv4qA1J6MiyhBBGcozs%2Fx1dkjIx2tWbIuvE8QmszhG1KClQZVNoNt12axQFjZywTZeRqH7G%2FSgi%2BtSU2OtcfCRa%2B8r2z2VLveu1cEyf%2FvfeqHwaLyXZq43wIOpyIdKOabCZ7klmcfUNk3vXaRNty9TPRDrxxG7cGXCwcwybDc1QY6mQHGILoJ%2Bj%2BVcOS59987k4%2FUEFkUob%2Bt9MvSqjZ5pPSpOxL5RidqOwCxtJKOjBcwQJELoHtkEeheZwiZlnIDu37fPpJy8hipoxyrMSTrYgI%2FMD31ULMSdpY1sQjq33Gxi%2F64axTYI5bJnMgqYhwJRKweiOe%2BXvc%2FW8XMcRFUr2DLL%2FgWq%2FtKrGktFAzP%2F2B6HX6o0e7G8Q3GuBc%3D&Expires=1790385159
[2] No. 10 Squadron RAF – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._10_Squadron_RAF
[3] No. 10 Squadron (RAF) during the Second World War https://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/10_wwII.html
[4] 10 Squadron (RAF) – Melbourne Yorkshire – CASPIR Unit Display https://caspir.warplane.com/personnel/unit-search/unit-type/RAF_Sqn/unit/10
[5] Air and Space Power Review Vol 23 No 1 https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-power-studies/aspr/aspr-vol23-iss1-2-pdf/
[6] Target for Tonight, Op Seven – Hannover (A Very Dark Night for … http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/08/target-for-tonight-op-seven-hannover.html
[7] 10 Squadron Halifax II JD272 ZA-F Sgt. Rostron, RAF Melbourne … https://aircrewremembered.com/rostron-alfred.html
[8] Sergeant Fernley Graham Chilcott — Royal Air Force, WW2 (d. 1943) https://ww2rafproject.org.uk/people/Sergeant_Fernley_Graham_Chilcott/
[9] 10 Squadron at R.A.F. Aldergrove? – WW2Talk https://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/10-squadron-at-r-a-f-aldergrove.54431/
[10] No. 10 Squadron Royal Air Force in the Second World War 1939-1945 https://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/ww2/allied/royalairforce/sqdview.php?pid=209
[11] British Military Aviation in 1943 – RAF Museum https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/research-enquiries/history-of-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1943-2/
[12] RAF Bomber Command – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command
[13] RESEARCH – 10 Squadron Association – Royal Air Force https://www.10sqnass.co.uk/research-help.html
[14] 8 No 10 squadron raf in world war ii Images – PICRYL https://picryl.com/topics/no+10+squadron+raf+in+world+war+ii
[15] RAF Bomber Command During The Second World War https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/second-world-war/bombing/raf-bomber-command
[16] 27/28.09.1943 199 Squadron Stirling III EF118 EX:O Plt Off. Maurice … https://aircrewremembered.com/hodson-maurice.html

Dover’s Brave Air Gunner: Frederick Ealden’s Final Mission

Frederick William Ealden was a 21-year-old Sergeant and Air Gunner in the RAF, who died when his aircraft crashed in Germany during World War II on June 26, 1943. A native of Dover, he balanced early life and military service, and is remembered for his contributions and loss in the Bomber Command offensive.

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Frederick William Ealden was a young Dover man whose life was shaped by the town’s working-class districts, wartime service, marriage, and, ultimately, the loss of his aircraft over Germany in June 1943.[file:471]

Sergeant and Air Gunner Frederick William Ealden, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, failed to return from operations on the night of 25–26 June 1943.

Family report and wartime remembrance notices

Early Life and Family

Frederick William Ealden was born in Dover on 22 June 1921, the son of William J. Ealden and Selina Rachel Swinerd.[file:471] His birth was registered in the Dover registration district, confirming his roots in the town that remained central to his life.[file:471] By the time of the 1939 Register he was living at 13 Lower Hamlets Street in Dover, a working-class area associated with the older Tower Hamlets district of the town, and he was then employed as an iron casting grinder in engineering.[file:471]

Lower Hamlets Street formed part of a busy maritime and industrial quarter of Dover, with terraced housing, local pubs, and close connections to the port economy.[file:471] That setting helps explain the practical, skilled nature of Frederick’s early employment, which placed him within the local engineering trades before the war.[file:471] In 1942 he was living at 10 Widred Road in Kearnsey, near Dover, with his parents, showing that he remained closely tied to his family home even after enlistment.[file:471]

Frederick married Jean Marion Hibbert on 19 October 1942 at River Church, Dover, and the marriage notice in the local press provides a useful glimpse of the social world surrounding the couple.[file:471] The report states that Jean was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hibbert of Bushy Ruff, Kearsney, and that the newly married couple received many presents from family and friends.[file:471] No children are recorded in the family report.[file:471]

Military Service

Frederick served as a Sergeant and Air Gunner in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, with service number 1397129.[file:471] He enlisted in Euston after August 1940 and was later posted to Bomber Command, flying in a Short Stirling III, serial EH900, coded WP-Y.[file:471] His training and war service placed him among the expanding ranks of young aircrew drawn into the RAFVR as Britain built up its bomber offensive against Germany.[web:479][web:481]

By June 1943 Frederick was serving with No. 90 Squadron RAF under No. 3 Group Bomber Command.[file:471][web:479] The squadron had re-formed in November 1942 as a heavy-bomber unit and was operating Short Stirlings from RAF Wratting Common in Cambridgeshire during the first half of 1943.[web:479][web:481] No. 90 Squadron was part of the broader RAF strategic bombing effort and, in June 1943, was engaged in some of the most demanding operations of the Battle of the Ruhr.[web:478][web:479]

No. 90 Squadron was part of No. 3 Group Bomber Command’s hard-fought offensive against the Ruhr, flying Short Stirlings from East Anglia in the summer of 1943.

RAF squadron history and wartime operation records

Unit Context at Time of Death

No. 90 Squadron’s wartime role in mid-1943 was to undertake night bombing and minelaying operations against German industrial and transport targets.[file:471][web:479] The squadron had begun flying operational Stirling sorties earlier in 1943 and was then based at RAF Wratting Common, having moved there from Ridgewell in May 1943.[web:479][web:481] Its aircraft were part of No. 3 Group, one of the major bomber groups in RAF Bomber Command, which contributed to the concentrated attacks on the Ruhr industrial area during that period.[web:476][web:478][web:479]

On the night of 25–26 June 1943, No. 90 Squadron took part in Operation Gelsenkirchen, a major Bomber Command raid involving 473 aircraft and 30 losses.[file:471] The target lay in the Ruhr, and the raid was affected by cloud cover and difficulties with Oboe marking, which reduced bombing accuracy and caused some aircraft to be misdirected.[file:471][web:478] Frederick’s last operation information identifies take-off from West Wickham and records the loss as a crash near Legden, south-east of Ahaus in Germany.[file:471]

This context matters because the Stirling bombers of No. 90 Squadron were operating in a period of intense pressure, when Bomber Command was sustaining heavy losses while trying to damage German war production.[web:478][web:479] The squadron’s mission profile combined strategic bombing with minelaying, and crews like Frederick’s were expected to fly long, hazardous night sorties over heavily defended territory.[file:471][web:479] In June 1943, therefore, his unit was not a static administrative formation but an active part of the RAF’s offensive against the Ruhr’s industrial heartland.[file:471][web:478][web:479]

Circumstances of Death

Frederick William Ealden was killed on 26 June 1943, aged 21, when his Short Stirling failed to return from the Gelsenkirchen operation.[file:471] The family report notes that the aircraft crashed at Legden, in Westphalia, Germany, and that he was interred with six comrades.[file:471] Contemporary newspaper notices in the Dover Express recorded him first as missing from air operations and then later as “missing, presumed killed”, reflecting the uncertainty that often followed bomber losses over enemy territory.[file:471]

The notices placed by his wife, parents, relatives, and friends show how deeply his loss was felt in Dover and beyond.[file:471] By 1945 the press reports referred to him as having “failed to return” from operations and noted that he was laid to rest in Legden Cemetery, Westphalia, before later burial arrangements were reflected in Commonwealth War Graves records.[file:471] The repeated memorial notices underline both the gradual confirmation of his fate and the sustained grief of his family.[file:471]

Burial and Commemoration

Frederick is commemorated at Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Germany, where he lies in a collective grave, 23. E. 6-8.[file:471] The CWGC entry records him as Sergeant F. W. Ealden, Air Gunner, Royal Air Force, died 26 June 1943 aged 21, and the headstone inscription carries the familiar Binyon line, “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.”[file:471] Reichswald Forest War Cemetery was established after the war to concentrate burials from across western Germany and now contains many Commonwealth casualties from the air war.[file:471]

His burial in a collective grave reflects the often violent and fragmented circumstances of bomber losses, where aircrew could be recovered only after crashes deep inside Germany.[file:471] The family report also gives his Find a Grave memorial reference, helping researchers and descendants trace the grave and associated records.[file:471] Together these memorial forms provide a fixed place of remembrance for a man whose final mission ended far from Kent.[file:471]

Legacy

Frederick’s life illustrates the path taken by many young men from coastal Kent: a working life in local industry, marriage in wartime, service in the RAFVR, and death on active operations before the age of 22.[file:471] His story also links Dover’s home front with the wider strategic air war over Germany, showing how a man from Tower Hamlets and Kearnsey became part of Bomber Command’s long offensive against the Ruhr.[file:471][web:478][web:479] For family historians, he is remembered not only as a casualty but as a husband, son, and local working man whose life was abruptly cut short.[file:471]

The marriage notice, the local obituary references, and the CWGC record together preserve a small but complete arc of remembrance from Dover to Westphalia.[file:471] His service with No. 90 Squadron and No. 3 Group places him within a significant chapter of RAF Bomber Command history, when Stirling crews flew some of the most dangerous raids of 1943.[web:478][web:479][web:481] That wider context gives his family’s memorial notices and his grave at Reichswald added historical weight, while keeping the focus on the individual life behind the record.[file:471]

Sources and Further Reading