Operation: Dive bombing, France

Date: 8th August 1944 (Tuesday)

Unit No: 440 (City of Ottawa) Squadron, RCAF, 143 Wing, 2nd Tactical Air Force

Type: Typhoon Ib

Serial: MN313

Code: I8:?

Base: ALG B-9 Lantheuil, France

Location: Les Houlles, France

Pilot: Flt Lt. Clifford Waldron Hicks J26912 RCAF Age 22. KiA

Above Flt Lt. Hicks from his Service Record

Above: Courtesy of The Ottawa Citizen, dated June 25th, 1946

From left to right in the front row: Fg Off. Roger Eugene George McCurdy J21517 (KiA 12th August 1944), Fg Off. James Hughes Beatty J14471, Unknown, Unknown.

Standing second row: Fg Off. John Fraser Dewar J28180 (KiA 12th August 1944), WO2. Richard Arthur Watson R135831, Fg Off. Ronald William Doidge J26406 (KiA 20th October 1944), Sqn Ldr. Harold Orville Gooding DFC J10608, Flt Lt. Clifford Waldron Hicks (This report), Fg Off. Donald Claude Campbell J28170.

Seated on the wing third row: Flt Lt. Donald Edward Jenvey J11309 (Evader/Killed 25th March 1944), Fg Off. John Spencer ‘Sandy’ Colville J29167 (KiA 18th August 1944), Fg Off. R.J. Currie Gardner J36788, Fg Off. Gordon Douglas Russell J13714.

REASON FOR LOSS

On the 8th August 1944 at 10:25 hrs Flt Lt. Hicks took off from B-9 Lantheuil leading a flight of five Typhoons on a bombing mission against a German Headquarters located in a Chateau. Four direct hits were scored on the Chateau with the balance of the bombs in the target area.

Note: It is possible that the Chateau targeted is today named Domaine Les Houlles some 24¼ km (15 mls) due south of Caen.

Intense accurate light flak was encountered over the target and at about 10:45 hrs whilst Flt Lt. Hicks was pulling out of his dive his aircraft was seen to burst into flames and crash close to the target. He was not seen to bale out and was therefore reported as “Missing Believed Killed”.

Flt Lt. Hicks was buried in an isolated grave in a garden 200 yards NW off the Clair Tizon road at Les Houlles in France.

Burial details:

Above Initial Grave Marker for Flt Lt. Hicks

Flt Lt. Clifford Waldron Hicks. He was recovered and reinterred on the 6th April 1945 at the Bretteville-su-Laize Canadian Cemetery, Grave XII.H.1. Inscription: ‘ALWAYS WILL YOUR HONOUR YOUR NAME AND YOUR GLORY REMAIN. EXETER, CANADA’. Born on the 9th May 1922 in London, Ontario. Son of Byron Erastus (deceased) and Elizabeth Loretta Christina (née Essery) Hicks. Husband of Agnes Isobel (née Forbes) Hicks, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Researched by Ralph Snape and dedicated to this pilot and his family.

Other sources as quoted below:

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