LEST WE FORGET
Flying Officer Kenneth Millett HUTCHINS
Service No: 422956
Born: Hurstville NSW, 15 April 1925
Enlisted in the RAAF: 15 June 1942
Unit: No. 100 Squadron (RAF), RAF Grimsby, Lincolnshire
Died: Air Operations: (No. 100 Squadron Lancaster aircraft LM 622), North West Europe, 26 August 1944, Aged 19 Years
Buried: Kiel War Cemetery, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Alfred Henry and Mary Elizabeth Hutchins, of Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia.
Roll of Honour: Hurstville NSW
Remembered: Panel 124, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Flying Officer Hutchins was aged 19 years and 4 months when he lost his life. W.R.Chorley “RAF Bomber Command losses of 2nd World War” says Hutchins was one of the youngest Australian bomber pilots to die on bomber operations in 1944.
Lancaster LM 622 of 100 Squadron took off from RAF Station Grimsby at 2030 hours on the night of 26 August 1944 to attack targets at Kiel, Germany. Nothing was heard from the aircraft after take off and it did not return to base. Eighteen Lancasters from various Squadrons were lost on this raid on Kiel.
The crew members of LM 622 were:
Flight Sergeant Albert Norman James Billing (436283) (Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Reginald John Bucirde (419567) (Wireless Operator Air Gunner)
Flying Officer Darrell Owen Connolly (429218) (Air Bomber)
Flying Officer Kenneth Millett Hutchins (422956) (Pilot)
Flying Officer James Standish Leigh (434296) (Navigator)
Flying Officer Kenneth Roy Rogers DFC (171085) (RAFVR) (Air Gunner)
Sergeant Reginald Henry Watts (1851033) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer)
Following post war enquiries and investigations, it was recorded in 1949 that Flight Sergeant
Bucirde had lost his life at sea. The bodies of the other six crew members were washed ashore and identified on various parts of the west coast of Schleswig–Holstein and on small islands off the coast.
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Chorley, W R. Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War – Volume 5 Aircraft and Aircrew Losses 1944, Midland Counties Publications, 1997
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veteran’s Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/18/446