Pilot Officer W. J. Drew
44 Sqn. Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
155245
Killed in action, 19 August 1943, Germany. Aged 33.
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William (better known as John) Drew was born in 1910, the son of William Joseph Drew (a waiter from Devonport, Devon) and Emma Drew (a cook from Speyton on Dartmoor). Around the time William was born the family lived at 42 Arnold Road, Woking. Later they lived at The Dell in Janoway Hill.
William attended the County School from 1921 and played cricket for the school and the Post Office where he worked as a clerk after leaving school in 1926.
John enlisted with the RAFVR and learned to fly in California. Whilst there he became a good friend of Basil Rathbone the famous actor and star of the Sherlock Holmes movies.
John was gazetted as a Pilot Officer on 14 June 1943 and was posted to 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron based at Dunholme Lodge in Lincolnshire. The squadron was equipped with Hampdens and Lancasters and had been renamed in 1941 in honour of the fact that some 25% of the crew were Rhodesian.
On 18 August 1943 John prepared for his eighth operational flight. Mk III Lancaster JA897 had only been delivered to 44 Squadron five weeks earlier but had already logged 93 flying hours. The operational target that night was Peenemunde, a V-2 rocket site in the far north-east of Germany.
Lancaster JA897 took to the air from Dunholme Lodge at 2201. Over north east Germany the aircraft was spotted by Lt. Peter Spoden’s night fighter flying from Griefswald. The Lancaster was hit by cannon fire between the inner and outer port engines setting the wing fuel tanks alight. The aircraft crashed at Forst Hagen between Hangshagen and Griefswald at 0150. killing six of the crew of seven. Two other Lancasters of 44 Sqn. were lost that night.
The crew of JA897 were as follows:
P/O Sam Rudkin - Aged 21 from Leicester. Killed in action.*
Flt. Sgt. John Jopling - Aged 23 from London. Killed in action.
Sgt. James Reid - Aged 19 from Ayr. Killed in action.
Sgt. John Drew - Killed in action.
Sgt. Timothy James - Aged 22 from Gatooma, Southern Rhodesia. Killed in action.
Sgt. Joseph Bassett - Aged 20 from London. Killed in action.
Sgt. W. Sparks - Survived and taken prisoner.
The first news that John’s mother received was that he had been posted missing and she informed the Woking News and Mail of rumours that he had survived and been taken prisoner. Perhaps this was more in hope than anything else because her enquiries at the War Office and Red Cross led to no further news of her son.
John Drew has no known grave and is remembered on the Air Force Memorial, Runnymede, Surrey (panel 131) and on the Woking County Grammar School roll of honour located in Christ Church, Woking.
*Sam Rudkins brother Ron also died on active service.
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Last updated 10 November 2009
Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Woking News and Mail
Woking County School magazine
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