Leonard Whetton

IBCC: Avro Lancaster I serial number LM140 markings UM-02
Shot down on the return leg by a night fighter flown by Lt Peter Spoden of Stab11/NJG6.
Old Elizabethans Service Roll:
After the order to bale out one of the crew succeded in doing so and was taken prisoner and he could give no accurate account as to how many crew were alive when he left the aircraft.
An official German report received through the International Red Cross gave the name of 2 members of crew who lost their lives but doesn't mention F/O Whetton. He was persumed to have lost his life on the August 26th 1944. Post war investigations by the RAF Missing Persons Research and Enquiry Service have received information that he was buried in a civilian cemetery at Geisenheim near Presbery , west of Mainz.
Letters received from the Officer Commanding 626 sqdn and from the relatives of the other members of the crew speak very highly of hs courage and reliability as a pilot and captain and of the great confidence that they had in him.
He had 1,660 flying hours to his credit . Whetton joined the forces in December in 1940 and at the time of his death he had performed 28 operational flights including Aachen, Le Harve, Paris, Caen, Stuttgart, Ghent and Ruselsheim.

Name on the memorial is spelt as Wetton not Whetton.

Mansfield Chronicle Advertiser: 1/5/1947
Missing Mansfield Flying Officer. Grave Found After Three Years.
Nearly three years after his death in a bombing raid over Germany news has been received that the grave of a 32 year old Mansfield airman, Flying officer Leonard Whetton of 32 Beech Hill Drive has been located.
A letter from the RAF Missing Research and Enquiry Service in Germany to the relatives states that he was buried in a civilian cemetery near Presberg west of Mainz. The body will be reinterred in a British War Cemetery.
Flying Officer Whetton, who is the oldest son of Mr & Mrs W h Whetton of 327 Chesterfield Road South, Mansfield had only two more flights to complete his operational duties when he met his death.
The Lancaster bomber on a "pin-point" raid had it's tail shot off by German fighters on the night of August 25/26 1944 and all but one member of the crew perished.
Born in Sutton in Ashfield the late Flying Officer Whetton spent most of his life in Shirebrook, from where is family moved to Mansfield 9 years ago. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School and before entering the RAF at the end of 1940 was associated with his father in the house furnishing business of Briggs and Whetton, Shirebrook. He was a prominent member of the Shirebrook Tennis Club. Three days after war broke out he was married to Miss Marjorie Guilor of Kirkby in Ashfield, a teacher at mansfield Woodhouse School. Their son was three years old on Monday.

1st May 1947 was a Thursday so the previous Monday would have been, 28th April. So John Whetton's date of birth was 28th April 1944 and so he was only 4 months old when his father was died.