Name
Stanley Oswald Spicer
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
19/08/1942
31
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Sergeant
1181149
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
207 Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HITCHIN CEMETERY
West Extn. Grave 720.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
ONE OF THE FEW TO WHOM WE OWE SO MUCH. AT SUNSET, AND IN THE MORN WE WILL REMEMBER HIM
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial,
Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
He was posted from 207 C.U. on the 10th August 1942 to 207 Squadron as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and his Service Number was 1181149. Like so many others, he was to have a very short lifespan. His first mission was to Dusseldorf on the 15th August as part of the crew of Lancaster R5674. Four days later he was in Lancaster I R5863 EN-? that had taken off from Normanton on a training flight at 01.15hrs. The aircraft crashed twelve miles northeast of Nottingham while practising overshooting procedures on three engines. All six members of the crew were killed.
He is buried in Hitchin Cemetery in Grave 720 West Extension and his Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial stone has the additional inscription "One of the few to whom we owe so much. At sunset and in the morning we will remember him" .
He was the son of John Henry and Florence Annie Spicer of Hitchin.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Bomber Command Losses’ by W.R. Chorley
