Pilot Officer Charles Preece

Flying Officer James Preece from Alberta, Hardisty, Canada was the son of a railroad engineer and one of two brothers

The navigator who died with him was Flying Officer, Frederick Ruffle DFC of 515 squadron. Before the crash Fred had flown over 61 sorties on intruder operations. Most of them with the elite 8 group pathfinder squadron. He was awarded his DFC for the part he played on more than one occasion during the Dam Buster raids made on the Dortmund Ems Canal in Germany.

He also took part in the siege of Malta and the D Day landings.

Fred left a wife and ten month old daughter, He is buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church, High Hurstwood in East Sussex.

This is extremely tentative, but I discovered in The Times 13 February 2002 (yes, 02 not 04) the report from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell – The Register. It is a list of graduates. One from the Engineering branch is called Flying Officer M.G. Preece.

Maybe, just maybe, the RAF bug runs in the family and he’s related. Have a look and see how many Preeces there are in Bedford. It’s not an uncommon name, but when you’re grabbing at straws, you might as well try anything.

Old newspaper articles is one of my specialities – even if they are bizarrely remote. 🙂

Thanks guys,

will definately pursue these avenues of investigation, shall endevour to contact both the local paper and the parish vicar today.

Let’s hope that any light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t reveal itself to be an approaching train.

Thanks once more guys.

The Canadian Casualty List published in the newspapers at the time state “wife overseas”, so it’s possible that he is buried in the cemetery nearest to where she lived. Possibly they were married in the church where he is buried?

Geoffs suggestion to try the local papers is a good one as if they married locally there may be mention of that somewhere too.

P/O Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Barry, a South African pilot serving with 501 sqn lost his life on the 7th October 1940. The squadron was based at Kenley, whilst his aircraft crashed at Darenth, Kent, and yet he was buried at Finghall, N Yorkshire. It turned out that a relative lived there.

I would suspect that your man was buried where he was, so that he would be close to a relative or family friend, either alive or dead.

Perhaps the local paper might have an account of the funeral which might mention the reason he’s there, or there might be a clue in any list of those who attended the funeral, ie ‘Mrs J Bloggs (sister)’ etc. What about the Parish magazine of the time? It would also be worth putting an appeal in one or more local papers to see if any current residents are aware of a local connection

Geoff

Hi Ian,

thanks for taking the time out to post your reply, I had read somewhere that Serrate was something to do night-fighters and Radar and I thank you again for confirming it.

What I am dearly trying to find out is the reason why P/O Preece Is buried in the Parish Church of Clapham, made even more strange that his is the only RAF grave in the Chuchyard given that RAF Twinwood is just a half mile to the North and Station 111 ‘Thurleigh’ home to 8th AF 306th BG is about another mile further to the North, both of which had their fair share of tragedy,

So can anyone else out there cast some light?

FYI, Serrate was a device which enabled the Mosquito crew to home in on a German night fighter’s airborne radar transmissions. If you need more detailed information, let me know.