LEST WE FORGET
Warrant Officer John Penboss HUNT
Service No: 433038
Born: Sydney NSW, 4 February 1925
Enlisted in the RAAF: 16 February 1943
Unit: No. 18 Squadron (RAF)
Died: Air Operations: (No. 18 Squadron Boston aircraft BZ590), northern Italy, 21 April 1945, Aged 20 Years
Buried: Padua War Cemetery, Italy
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Benjamin James Hunt and Jeanette Ellen Hunt; husband of Jean Audrey Hunt, of Lidcombe, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Unknown
Previously remembered on the Malta Memorial to the Missing
Remembered: Panel 124, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
At 2054 hours on 21 April 1945 Boston BZ 590 took off from Forli drome to attack a river crossing target at Taglia Di Po followed by an armed reconnaissance of the Po Valley, Italy. The aircraft failed to return from this mission. Following post war enquiries and investigations, it was recorded in 1949 that the missing crew members had no known graves. In 2011, the site of the crash near Ferrara was rediscovered and a local inhabitant provide information that the aircraft had crashed and burned for two days following which the impact crater was filled in. The bodies of the four crew members were buried with full military honours in a joint grave on 18 July 2013.
The crew members of BZ590 were:
Flight Sergeant Alexander Thomas Bostock (1818442) (RAFVR) (Wireless Operator Air)
Warrant Officer John Penboss Hunt (433038) (Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant David Millard Perkins (1801441) (RAFVR) (Navigator Bomb Aimer)
Sergeant David Kennedy Raikes (1807677) (RAFVR) (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, 166/18/624