Vickers Wellington DF673 Memorial, Moerbeke-Waas

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On the night of 28/29 August 1942, Wellington III DF673 AA-? of 75 (NZ) Squadron departed RAF Mildenhall bound for Nuremberg. The crew of five were intercepted over Belgium at 23:26 by Hauptmann Dr Horst Patuschka of 7./NJG2, who shot them down for his 12th Abschuss. The aircraft crashed northeast of Moerbeke-Waas in Oost-Vlaanderen. All five crew were killed.

The pilot, Flight Sergeant Sydney Bernard Thomas Davis, was 20 years old and already married — his wife Edna May Davis lived at Lightpill. He was the son of Bert and Alice Davis of Stroud. That a 20-year-old man was already a husband flying front-line operations in 1942 is a measure of how the war compressed the ordinary sequence of life.

The crew were a mixed force — two British RAFVR airmen and three Canadians. Flight Sergeant Charles Henry Vickers, 22, was from Newton Heath, Manchester. The three Canadians — Baittle (RCAF), McKay (RCAF, 31, from Springhill, Nova Scotia), and Hiltz (RCAF, 20, from Toronto) — reflect the breadth of the Commonwealth commitment that kept Bomber Command flying in 1942.

All five are buried together at Adegem Canadian War Cemetery, Belgium — a fitting resting place for a crew that drew on both British and Canadian service.

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