WW2 aircraft crew laid to rest with Military Honours

Personnel from the Queen’s Colour Squadron place the coffin containing the remains of the crew of BK716 at its final resting place. Copyright: Sgt Samantha Crowe, Imagery Technician, Canadian Armed Forces.

A full military burial ceremony has been held in the Netherlands for the British and Canadian crew of an RAF Stirling BK716 which went missing in 1943.

The 28 September service at CWGC Jonkerbos War Cemetery was led by Reverend (Squadron Leader) Josephine Critchley, Chaplain at RAF Honington, and was attended by family members.

Representatives of The Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), The British Embassy in the Netherlands and local dignitaries were present. Members of the Queen’s Colour Squadron (QCS) bore the coffin and laid the remains to rest with military honours.

The ceremony was organised by the MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (MOD JCCC), also known as the ‘MOD War Detectives’. 

The crew of Stirling BK716 No 218 (Gold Coast) Squadron RAF crashed on 30 March 1943 with all seven crew members on board. The crash site was later located in lake Markermeer, in the municipality of Almere, and the remains recovered in 2020. Stirling BK716 took off from Downham Market, Norfolk on 29 March 1943 for a raid on Berlin but shortly after the crew was designated “missing believed killed”.

Following the recovery, which happened as part of the National World War 2 Aircraft Recovery Programme of the Netherlands, and working alongside the Recovery and Identification Unit of the Royal Netherlands Army and The RAF Air Historical Branch, JCCC confirmed from the wreckage’s unique engine plate that it was that of Stirling BK716. Human remains were few, and it was impossible to assign them to individuals, but all were remembered at today’s burial.

Crew of BK716. Crown Copyright

Flying Officer John Frederick Harris RAF

Flying Officer Harry Gregory Farrington RCAF

Flying Officer John Michael Campbell RAF

Sergeant Charles Armstrong Bell RAF

Flight Sergeant John Francis James McCaw RCAF

Sergeant Ronald Kennedy RAF

Sergeant Leonard Richard James Shrubsall RAF

Personnel from the Royal Canadian Air Force lay two Canadian flags at the graveside, each representing one of their countrymen who died on of BK716. Copyright: Sgt Samantha Crowe, Imagery Technician, Canadian Armed Forces.

Tracey Bowers, JCCC said: 
“It is lovely to see so many families here today to witness this burial. We thank all the crew for their bravery in defending our freedom and allowing us to live our lives as we do today.”

The niece of RCAF Flying Officer Farrington, Margot McLeod who travelled from Ontario Canada, said:
"It’s so important for us, and for our mother, who is 96. Harry was all the family she had, so she now knows where he is. He got marreid before he died and his wife was my godmother, so she used to talk to me about Harry – I feel we knew him. Mom’s always talked about him too, and his picture hangs in her house. She keeps him so close in her heart and is so thankful that she now knows the story of what happened to him and that he has a resting place."

Barbara Bradbury, the niece of RAF Flying Officer Campbell, travelled from Auckland, New Zealand to attend the ceremony said:
“This ceremony has provided a lot of resolution for our family: I’m very moved by it. I grew up with the grief of knowing his plane had gone down but nothing else. I was the first person in the family to be contacted by a researcher looking for relatives and it was quite exciting to be involved, and it was outstanding to hear the plane had been discovered. John was a very creative man who did a lot of writing and made cinefilms, and now we have gone on to learn more about the other crew members of BK716.”

The ceremony, conducted by Rev. Critchley, included poems and readings chosen and delivered by family members, and reflected how close the international crew would have been to each other.

Rev. Critchley said: 
"In life, we know not what happens when we die…as we have paid tribute to the fearlessness of the BK716 crew, what we do know is that they are at rest and at peace, in the safety of God’s love, gathered safely home."

Director for the Central and Southern European Area at the CWGC, Geert Bekaert, said:
“It is a privilege for us to care for the lasting resting place at Jonkerbos War Cemetery of those who gave their lives in March 1943. Whilst it has not been possible to individually recover and identify them, the names of all seven crew members of RAF Stirling BK716 are engraved on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, honoured there in perpetuity.”

A CWGC headstone naming a war casualty is only used to mark graves which are confirmed to be those of a specific, identified individual. In cases where the grave cannot be identified by name, but some details have been confirmed then the service, regiment, rank or date of death may be inscribed on the headstone. In the case of a grave which is known to belong to members of a particular aircraft, but where the remains which have been recovered may not be those of the complete crew and/or cannot be individually identified, the grave will be registered as belonging to the aircraft. To ensure that each member of the crew is individually commemorated in perpetuity, their names will remain inscribed on the Air Forces Memorial to the Missing for the theatre of operations in which the aircraft was lost. In the case of Stirling BK716, this is the Runnymede Memorial where all seven crew have always been named.

Members of the public and dignitaries join service personnel from the Netherlands, Canada and the UK in remembering the crew of BK716. Copyright: Sgt Samantha Crowe, Imagery Technician, Canadian Armed Forces.