LEST WE FORGET
Sergeant Peter Leighton BROWNE
Service No: 400407
Born: Cobden VIC, 23 January 1921
Enlisted in the RAAF: 20 August 1940
Unit: No. 115 Squadron (RAF), RAF Station Marham
Died: Air Operations: (No. 115 Squadron Wellington aircraft Z8844), Germany, 14 October 1941, Aged 20 Years
Buried: Durnbach War Cemetery, Bad Tolz, Bayern, Germany
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Alan Leighton Browne and Eileen Rowena Browne, of East Malvern, Victoria, Australia
Roll of Honour: East Malvern VIC
Remembered: Panel 119, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
At 2304 hours on the night of 13 October 1941 Wellington Z8844 took off from Marham, detailed to bomb Nuremberg, Germany. Nothing was heard from the aircraft after take-off and it failed to return to base. A Missing Research and Enquiry Team reported “The aircraft was on its way to the target at Nuremberg, when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire from the I G Farben works at Oppou and it
crashed near Friesenheimer Insel a small island in the nearby Rhine. These places were about 3 miles from Ludwigshafen which is on the Rhine near Mannheim. One of the bombs on board exploded and all the crew members were killed.”
The crew members of Z8844 were:
Sergeant Peter Leighton Browne (400407) (Second Pilot)
Sergeant Frederick Harry Ewart Dearden (1110712) (RAFVR) (Pilot)
Sergeant Peter William Jarrett (923216) (RAFVR) (Observer)
Sergeant Mervyn Stanley Preece (1375153) (RAFVR)
Sergeant Frank Parker Stewart (987915) (RAFVR)
Sergeant Bernard Frederick Widdecombe (12603860 (RAFVR)
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veterans’ Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 163/93/305