Operation: Training

Date: 23rd April 1942 (Thursday)

Unit: No. 6 AACU (Anti Aircraft Co-operation Unit)

Type: Lysander IIIa

Serial: V9721

Code: -

Base: RAF Sydenham, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Location: At airfield

Pilot: Sgt. Jozef Antoni Pudelko 781015 PAF Age 23. Killed

W/Op/Air/Gnr: Sgt. Norman Elcock 1112747 RAFVR Age 21. Killed

REASON FOR LOSS:

During take of the Lysander crashed - killing both crew members.

Note: RAF Sydenham was later taken over as a Naval Air Station and was renamed HMS Gadwall and later HMS Gannett III. In 1973 it was returned to the RAF as a maintenance unit. It is now the site of Belfast's George Best City Airport where a memorial has been erected to the memory of all those who served there during it's time as a military airfield.

Grave photograph kindly supplied by Mike McQaid

Burial details:

Sgt. Jozef Antoni Pudelko. Belfast Roman Catholic Cemetery. War Graves Group, Section A. Row LG. Grave 38. Born on the 13th December 1918 in Bryńce Zagórne, Poland now Ukraine.

Sgt. Norman Elcock. United Reform Church, Winsford. Grave 258. Son of Albert Edward and Phyllis (née Templer), of Winsford, Cheshire, England.

Researched by Mike McQaid for Aircrew Remembered - January 2018. Page dedicated to the relatives of this crew with thanks to sources indicated below.