Name
Arthur Charles Jepps
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
12/07/1943
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Flight Lieutenant
45724
Royal Air Force
207 Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
VEVEY (ST. MARTIN'S) CEMETERY
Grave 90.
Switzerland
Headstone Inscription
DEARLY LOVED HUSBAND OF FANNY AND FATHER OF CHARLOTTE. FORRES, SCOTLAND
UK & Other Memorials
Letchworth Town Memorial, Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2)
Biography
He had attended the school in Shillington in Bedfordshire and the Pixmore Road and Norton Road schools in Letchworth prior to going to the Hitchin Grammar School for the period I 925-1931. He passed the School Certificate and secured a Governors Leaving Exhibition in 193 l, valued at £20 per annum, which enabled him to further his studies in Art at the Battersea Polytechnic. During his stay at the school, be made a drawing of the Junior School playground looking towards the Bancroft gate. Before serving with the R.A.F. he was Art Master at the King Edward VII Grammar School at St. Anne's-on-Sea and was a skilled wood engraver.
He was given Service Number 45724 after being commissioned in the R.A.F. and was eventually posted to 207 Squadron. He took part in many operational flights over enemy territory.
On the 12th July 1943 he was navigator in Lancaster 1 bomber ED412 EM-Q sent to attack Torino in Italy having taken off at 22.35hrs from Langar near Nottingham. The aircraft strayed into Swiss air space and was shot down by flak, crashing on Mont Grammont above Le Bouvenent not far from Vevey near Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The crew were first reported as missing and eventually as killed in action. His mother received a letter from a lady in Switzerland who had attended the funeral.
His grave is Number 90 in Vevey (St. Martin's) Cemetery. In 1993 a Memorial to the crew of seven was erected near the site of the crash.
His wife was Fanny Love Jepps (nee Watson), and they had a one year old daughter. The family lived at 69, Norton Road, Letchworth although Mrs Jepps came from Forres in Morayshire. He had been born in Letchworth and was the youngest son of William and Lottie (nee Marshall) Jepps of 141, Baldock Rd, Letchworth who had moved from Hitchin to Letchworth after disposing of their long-standing family business at 11/12 Churchyard, Hitchin to Mr Gordon Day (probably the greengrocers). He also had a brother and a sister. A photograph of him appears in the Citizen Newspaper dated 5th November 1943.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, Mr Robert Elliott, Shuttleworth Collection Archivist, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers, ‘Bomber Command Losses - 1943’ by W.R. Chorley, Herts & Beds Express dated 6th Nov 1943, Citizen dated 5th November 1943
