Operation: Offensive patrol

Date: 02/03rd March 1944 (Thursday/Friday)

Unit: No. 23 Squadron (238 Wing, Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force)

Type: Mosquito FB.VI

Serial: LR253

Code: YP-M

Base: RAF Alghero, Sardinia

Location: Lost without trace

Pilot: F/O. Alexander Crozier NZ/415749 RNZAF Age 23. Missing - believed killed (1)

Navigator: Fl/Sgt. John Harold Pownall 1337555 RAFVR Age 22. Missing - believed killed

REASON FOR LOSS:

Alexander went missing near Padua, Italy on the 02 March 1944, while on an offensive patrol over the Po Valley area near Padua, Italy. His Mosquito took off at 19:05 hrs. and was lost without trace, the two crew are commemorated on the Malta Memorial, Malta.

(1) The family lost another son earlier in the war. P/O. Robert Crozier NZ/401641 RNZAF. Missing - believed killed on the 21st February 1942. Whilst with 500 squadron flying Hudson VAM697 MK-K lost with all three other crew and commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.

Burial details:

F/O. Alexander Crozier. Malta Memorial. Panel 16, Column 2. Born in Ohakune on the 4th May 1920 to Robert Frederick Crozier (b. 1882; Newcastleton, Roxburghshire, Scotland) and Annie Swallow Crozier (née Stewart; b. 1884; Southland, New Zealand). Alexander was the second of their three boys. (Robert, b. 16th June 1917, and David, b. 25th November 1921). When Alexander died, he left a fiancé Jean Esther Wright, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L.W. Wright, of 44 Weka Street, Frankton Junction. They had announced their engagement in August 1943. (Advertised in the New Zealand Herald. Volume 80. Issue 24674. 28 August 1943, Engagements. Page 4)

As with his older brother, Robert, before him, Alexander joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force and trained to become a pilot. He was eventually posted to 23 Squadron, RAF (Alghero, Sardinia: 238 Wing, Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force). Alexander had clocked up 734 flying hours before his final 10th operational sortie.

Navigator: Fl/Sgt. John Harold Pownall. Malta Memorial. Panel 14, Column 1. Son of Walter L. and Mary L. Pownall, of Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, England.

Researched by Michael Ward - Robert and Alexander were his father’s first cousins (his father, born 1928, always spoke very fondly of Rob and Alec, and was in training as a bomber navigator when the war came to an end). Also many thanks to Robert Crozier for photographs. Page dedicated to the relatives of this crew with thanks to the research by Errol Martyn and his publications: “For Your Tomorrow Vols. 1-3”, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Weekly News of New Zealand, Papers Past. Air Ministry Squadron Operations Records, National Archives, Kew. Catalogue reference: AIR/27/1942. Bob Boston for Malta Memorial photographs. Other sources as quoted below:

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