LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Robert Gordon Kenyon HOLDEN
Service No: 403092
Born: Mount Russell NSW, 27 March 1912
Enlisted in the RAAF: 9 December 1940
Unit: No. 12 Squadron (RAF), RAF Station Binbrook, Lincolnshire
Died: Air Operations: (No. 12 Squadron Wellington aircraft Z8376), Germany, 31 May 1942, Aged 30 Years
Buried: the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleve, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
CWGC Additional Information: Son of George Kenyon Holden and Annette Phoebe Holden, of Inverell, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Inverell NSW
Remembered: Panel 124, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Wellington Z8376 took off from Binbrook at 2340 hours on the night of 30 May 1942 to bomb Cologne, Germany. Nothing was heard from the aircraft after take-off and the aircraft failed to return to base. It was later established that the aircraft crashed near Dusseldorf and all the crew members had been killed.
The crew members of Z8376 were:
Sergeant Herbert Bottomley (1360092) (RAFVR) (Wireless Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Robert Gordon Kenyon Holden (403092) (Second Pilot)
Flight Sergeant Arnold Adolf Seifert (R/80202) (RCAF) (Observer)
Flight Sergeant Edward Savage Masson (817211) (RAF (Auxiliary Air Force)) (Rear Gunner)
Flying Officer Alan Albert Waddell (408133) (Pilot)
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, 163/123/259