June 6 is not only the 65th anniversary of D-Day but also the day when two Royal Navy air trainees lost their lives in America. British officer pilot Sub-Lieutenant Albert John Dawson, 20, and Air Mechanic 1st Class Stanley Clive Wells, 28, were in training for 1820 Naval Air squadron and flying that afternoon out of their American base, NAS Squantum in Massachusetts. Over the town of Needham, the aircraft began to experience engine trouble. Losing altitude, Dawson’s plane crashed into the woods, exploding and killing the two fliers. Dawson and Wells are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, MA, and are recorded in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Debt of Honour Registry as well as in the Fleet Air Arm Roll of Honour.
A brass plaque in memory of the two airmen was dedicated April 12, 2005, near the spot in Needham where Dawson and Wells, as the plaque states, “lost their lives in dedicated service to their country and the Allied Forces and for the benefit of the entire free world.”
In a story in the Boston Globe, June 19, 2005, reporter H.D.S. Greenway wrote: “On that particular day when they died, death was sweeping the beaches of Normandy in the greatest naval invasion the world has ever seen. Yet the Royal Navy airmen who fell from the sky in Needham that day are to me no less heroes than those who fell on the sand and in the hedgerows of France in that long-ago June.”
By: cbiboy - 6th June 2009 at 14:37
I’ve added the link to this post and two large photos of the memorial plaque in Needham, MA, at AirshowBuzz. com (To view the two images, you must must first register at the site.) Go to:
By: Arabella-Cox - 5th June 2009 at 19:44
No. They tried. As have others.
HMG will not be moved and feel the names should stay on the memorials. Am currently having brain-fade and forget the exact numbers – something over thirteen I think. One was a notable spy called Schurch. All are commemorated by the CWGC and the Govt will not sanction removal as they feel “….it might upset relatives of those commemorated” and “the CWGC charter requires that all servicemen should be commemortated, howsoever they died”.
I think the failure of successive Governments to remove these names is a disgrace and an insult to those who died honourably – as well as being very deeply offensive to the murder victims. In these cases the victims families feelings are put behind those of the families of the executed murderers. That hardly surprises one in 21st Century Britain. Morally bankrupt, corrupt and inept Governments of various colours has consistently followed that line. Those who have formed Blair and Brown’s so called “governments” are emphatic that the status quo must be maintained and the executed murderers and spies continue to be given places of honoured commemmoration – whilst their bodies lie in disgrace in unmarked prison graves. The case has hardly the wide public appeal of the Ghurkas but, in my view, represents an equally apalling injustice.
By: Cking - 5th June 2009 at 18:37
Didn’t “After the battle” magazine get two names removed from a war memorial for the same reason a few years ago?
Rgds Cking
By: Arabella-Cox - 5th June 2009 at 11:54
Some irony, too, that one of the first Army casualties on D-Day was Gunner Kemp of the RA. He was hung at dawn, 6 June, at Pentonville Prison for murder. Due to an unforgiveable blunder his name (and many other executed servicemen murderers) was not removed from the service roll at time of his death. He (they) should have been given a dishonourable discharge the day before sentence was carried out. As a result the Army/CWGC could not trace his grave but knew he had died on 6 June 1944. Result? His name is on the Brookwood Memorial above the inscription “Their Name Liveth For Ever More”.
By: Rocketeer - 4th June 2009 at 23:08
welcome to the forum and many many thanx for sharing this sad story with us
regards
Tony
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June 4, 2009 at 10:53 pm