Handley Page Hampden Mk.I L4097 (VN-P), 50 Squadron, RAF Lindholme. Lost on combat operations on the night of 10-10/9/1940. According to the squadron diary (ORB, Air Ministry Form 540) for the period:
"10/11 September- OSTEND:
This evening, two aircraft, L4097 and P4408 took off at 19.56 hours to bomb barges at Ostend harbour. The crew of P4408 could not locate the target due to dense cloud and instead bombed a target of opportunity - rolling stock in a marshalling yard - on the return leg.
Hampden L4097 (VN-P) failed to return and nothing more was heard from this crew after the W/T call ‘GO’ was made. Believed to have been shot down by flak/AAA and crashed into the North Sea, Spuikom Dijk off Oostende, all four crew perished;
632830 Sgt. Reginald Halls, Age 20, and 635088 Sgt. William Aubrey Johnson.
Were never found, and are commemorated at Runnymede; they are missing to this day. Possibly they jumped above the sea with their parachutes, and drowned. While
40059 Flight Lt. Robert James Reed RAAF and 42889 Pilot Officer Peter William Roylance RAF
They were temporarily buried on the Spuikom, but on 10 January 1941 they were transferred to the cemetery on the Stuiverstraat.
