Ernest John Watts Reed

This story is shared by the Trust with kind permission from Pete Colley, Curator, Wickenby Museum.

Remembering Ernest John Watts Reed, Flight Sergeant, air bomber, aged 24, the son of John Henry Watts and Nellie Reed of Normanton on Soar, and husband of Nancy M. Reed. He was killed on the 11th August on his 25th mission. The squadron had been sent to lay mines at La Pallice in the mouth of the Gironde. According to one of the survivors of the crash, the aircraft suffered damage to a fuel tank during the mission which resulted in a shortage of fuel. It crashed at 03:30 near Aston Down airfield, Gloucestershire when attempting to land. Five of the crew were killed.

A news article was published in the Leicester Evening Mail of Tuesday 15 August about his death. We discover that he attended Loughborough Grammar School and after leaving schoool he was employed by the Nottingham Manufacturing Company, Loughborough. He had joined up in 1940 and did his training as a bomb aimer in Canada. He had only been married to Nancy for 12 months before he was killed.