Name
Maurice Sydney Nicholls
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
24/07/1941
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Pilot Officer
100623
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
104 Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
RUNNYMEDE MEMORIAL
Panel 34.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin, Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2)
Biography
He was at the Rev. C.E. Howlett's Boarding School in Gosfield before he went to the Hitchin Grammar School where he stayed from 1933-1936. After obtaining his School Certificate, he left school and was apprenticed to Elliston & Cavell, which was a Department Store in Oxford, no doubt with the intention of his going into the family draper’s business in Hitchin at some later time.
He joined the R.A.F.V.R. at Oxford before the war and flew Tiger Moths at Kidlington. In 1939 he was called up, given the Service Number 100623 and trained in Shropshire and was later based at Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire. He flew mainly Whitley bombers and later specialised in night-flying Wellington bombers, completing over thirty operational flights.
To avoid being made an instructor, he started on a second tour of operations but disappeared after bombing battleships at Brest harbour. He had taken off with J 04 Squadron in a Wellington II W5438 EP-E from Driffield in Yorkshire at 11.38hrs. He was last seen at 15.55hrs flying at 5,000ft northeast of Brest and being attacked by at least four fighters. Other aircraft in the formation said that P/O Nicholls made two runs over Brest in order to place his bombs on the target. The other five members of the crew also perished. 79 Wellingtons were engaged in the attack and 10 were lost to fighters and flak. Unfortunately, there was no fighter escort available for the Wellingtons.
His body was not recovered, and he is remembered on Panel 34 of the R.A.F. Memorial to the Missing at Runnymede, Egham in Surrey.
His parents were Sidney and Elsie May Nicholls of 15, Bancroft, Hitchin. A chair, dedicated to his memory, was presented for use in the Hitchin Grammar School Library.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Information :- Douglas Nicholls - his brother, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘RAF Bomber Command Losses’ by W.R. Chorley, ‘Bomber Command War Diaries’ by M. Middlebrook & C. Everitt
