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Operation: Bomber Support
Date: 06/07th November 1944 (Monday/Tuesday)
Unit: No. 515 Squadron
Type: Mosquito FB VI
Serial: PZ217
Code: P3-K
Base: RAF Little Snoring, Norfolk
Location: North Sea
Pilot: Fl/Lt. Thomas Noel Cooper 68807 RAFVR Age 30. Missing - believed killed
Nav: F/O. Kenneth Harding Bonner 171344 RAFVR Age 29. Missing - believed killed
REASON FOR LOSS:
Taking off from RAF Little Snoring in Norfolk at 18:20 hrs on a Bomber Support sortie to the regions of Nordholz and Stade, Germany. Supporting an attack from Bomber Command sending some 992 heavy bombers to Düsseldorf. The weather was described as a full moon, good visibility with little cloud.
At 22:14 hrs on the evening they left, a 100 group listening post heard a transmission from PZ217 “Is Base OK for me, will go to Woodbridge. Nothing further was heard from the aircraft and it is assumed they ditched in the channel.PZ217 P3-K taken at Saint Dizier in France. The two chaps shown in the front are F/O. J.W. Smith and Fl/Sgt. Dockeray DFC (courtesy Mrs. Jamieson, née Smith, Valerie Gordon and Iain Gordon)See the loss page for F/O. John William Smith DFC - also in November 1944.The loss was brought to our attention by a Mr John Sherratt who, in June 2016 was removing the windows from his kitchen and noticed a ragged newspaper cutting from the Daily Mail of 18th November 1944 and took the time to send a copy into us. He lives local to Exmouth and will visit the town War Memorial and pay his respects.
Burial details:
Fl/Lt. Thomas Noel Cooper. Runnymede Memorial. Panel 202. Son of Alfred Edmund and Rose Frances Cooper, of Talcahuano, Chile.
F/O. Kenneth Harding Bonner. Runnymede Memorial. Panel 204. Also commemorated on the Exmouth War Memorial. Son of Ernest and Emma Bonner, husband of Louisa Grace Bonner, of Exmouth, Devon, England.
Researched and dedicated to the relatives of the crew with thanks to John Sherratt and sources as quoted below:
KTY 18.06.2016
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning we will remember
them. - Laurence
Binyon
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Last Modified: 30 March 2021, 12:03