William Thomas Robert Hunter

A Sergeant with the Royal Air Force, William died on 1st of July 1944 aged 24. 

William was born at Lowestoft on 20 May 1920, a son of William James and Margaret (May) Hunter. He was baptised at Saint John's Church, Lowestoft, on 18 June 1920. His family lived at 61 Lawson Road, Lowestoft. William's parents died in the 1920s and it seems that William, and his siblings, were then cared for by their grandparents William Thomas and Laura L. Hunter. In 1939 the family home was at 40 Lawson Road, Lowestoft. 

William enlisted in the Royal Air Force after March 1938, initially to serve as an aircraft-hand. By July 1944 William was an Air Gunner serving with 101 Squadron based at Ludford Magna, Lincolnshire. 

On 1 July William was a member of the crew of a Lancaster I bomber, number ME616 SR-B, that took part in an ABC, or Airborne Cigar, raid on the railway yards at Vierzon. ABC sorties used electronic counter-measures to jam German VHF radio signals. William’s aircraft crashed near Chateaudun, twenty-five miles north-west of Orleans.

WITH THANKS TO: Malcolm Barrass

Note that Commonwealth War Graves and other sources give William's age as 25, but evidence from birth indexes and Saint John's Church records confirm his date of birth being in 1920.