Family tribute to airman killed on training flight

THE family of an airman killed in a training accident during the Second World War attended a memorial service in his honour.

Sgt Henry Whitfield Luker, 24, and eight crewmates were killed instantly when their Lancaster bomber crashed on June 18, 1943.

Last month, a memorial stone was unveiled at the parish church in Scredington, Lincolnshire, which was full to capacity.

John Luker and his wife Anne, from Shiplake, and his sister Sally and husband David, who live in North Yorkshire, attended the dedication service.

Mr Luker said: “Henry was my dad’s cousin and he and his brother Dick had enlisted into the Royal Australian Air Force at Brisbane a year or two earlier. He had previously carried out about 40 bombing raids over Germany and was killed, ironically, on a training flight.

“I was just a week under 10 at the time. Henry had taken me back to Reading School, where I had just started boarding, on the bus the previous Sunday evening. Five days later he had been killed.

“His two nephews — Dick’s sons — now live in Adelaide with their families and could not travel to the service so we represented the family as well as two of Sally’s children, Andrew and Elizabeth, with grandson Jack Henry.”

The service was led by the vicar of Scredington, Rev Chris Harrington, who was joined by Tim Barker, the Archdeacon of Lincoln, and Canon Peter Hall, who is the chaplain for the National Service Association.

It took two years to plan and was followed by a parade by Sleaford and Waddington Air Cadets joining Lincolnshire members of the National Service Association, which funded the stone. Wreaths were laid in the church for each of the airmen lost and this was followed by a fly-past by the Lancaster from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Its wings were dipped as a mark of respect.

Sgt Luker was the nephew of Alderman C Luker, the then Mayor of Henley, and visited the town regularly during periods of leave.

He was buried in Henley cemetery and, according to the Henley Standard at the time, Sgt Luker’s coffin was covered with the Union flag and escorted to the graveside by a guard of honour of buglers from the Henley Air Training Corps.

After the coffin had been lowered into the grave, the buglers sounded the Last Post and Reveille.