Name
Ralph Waters
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
27/06/1942
27
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Sergeant
1193368
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
218 Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Sage War Cemetery
13. C. 10.
Germany
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
He had been educated at a Portsmouth Secondary School and was later apprenticed to Portsmouth Hardware Company for seven years. Still later he represented a firm of sauce manufacturers in Lincolnshire.
He joined the R.A.F. with the Service Number 1193368 at the beginning of 1941 and had 34 operational flights to his credit He was a member of 218 Squadron and took off from Marbam at 23.55hrs on the 27th June 1942 for an operation against Bremen in a Stirling I DJ974 HA-T. 144 aircraft took part in the attack. The target was covered in thick cloud and could only be identified by using ‘GEE’ fixes. Nine aircraft were lost one of which was a Stirling. The aircraft was hit by flak and crashed into the sea near Hohenstiefersiel.
The seven crew were killed. Ralph was buried in Wilhelmshaven Military Cemetery but later moved to Plot 13, Row C, Grave 10 in the Sage War Cemetery in Oldenburg. Another member of the crew, Serjeant Dick, is also buried in Sage. The remainder are buried in Hannover War Cemetery. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission stone shows the date as the 27th June 1942, presumably as this was the date on which the aircraft took off, though his death must have been on the 28th June 1942.
The information came to his parents Mr and Mrs S. Waters of 32, Bancroft, Hitchin via the International Red Cross. His wife was with the Y.W.C.A. in the Midlands.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Pilgrimage Office, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Bomber Command Losses’ by W.R. Chorley, Herts Pictorial dated 27th October 1942, Herts & Beds Express dated 24th October 1942
