Harold James Cooper

A Sergeant with Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, Harold died on 26th of November 1941 aged 20. 

Harold was born at Penzance, Cornwall, on 2 March 1921, a son of Ernest Sidney and Selina Dorothy Cooper. In 1921 his family lived at Low Road, Thurlton, Norfolk. By 1939 their family home was at 70 Alexandra Road, Lowestoft, and Harold was a butcher’s apprentice. 

Harold enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve between September 1939 and June 1940. By November 1941 he was a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner with 214 Squadron. 

Harold was a member of the crew of a Wellington II bomber, number Z8373, that took off from Stradishall, on a bombing raid on Emden, Germany. The aircraft had engine trouble and had to return. Contact was lost when they were about eighty miles from the English coast. A search and rescue operation failed to find the aircraft and all of the crew were presumed to have died. 

Another member of the crew was Mervyn Weavers who also came from Lowestoft. 

See No. 214 (FMS) Squadron RAF - Personnel - Personnel C (214squadron.org.uk)

WITH THANKS TO:Malcolm Barrass