Mervyn Alfred Weavers

A Sergeant (Pilot) with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, Mervyn died on 26th November 1941 aged 25.

Mervyn was born at Kessingland on 28 August 1916, a son of William Walter and Mildred Weavers. He was baptised at Saint Edmund’s Church, Kessingland, on 24 September 1916 and his family lived at 2 Poplar Terrace, Kessingland. By 1939 Mervyn’s parents were living at Bethel Drive, The Beach, Kessingland. 

In 1939 Mervyn married Clara Ann Nightingale. This was registered in the Greenwich district and Mervyn was living at Sydenham at the time. By 1941 their home was at 1 Poplar Terrace, Kessingland. 

Mervyn enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve after May 1940. By November 1941 he was a Pilot with 214 Squadron. 

Mervyn 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 Harold Cooper who also came from Lowestoft.  

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

WITH THANKS TO: Malcolm Barrass