| Places | |
|---|---|
| Accession Number | P06367.001 |
| Collection type | Photograph |
| Object type | Black & white - Print silver gelatin |
| Maker |
Gillman and Soame |
| Place made | United Kingdom: England, Oxfordshire, Oxford |
| Date made | c 1941 |
| Conflict |
Second World War, 1939-1945 |
| Copyright |
Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain
|
Studio portrait of 407719 Flying Officer (FO) Vincent William James Mansell, RAAF, attached to ...
Description
Studio portrait of 407719 Flying Officer (FO) Vincent William James Mansell, RAAF, attached to 149 Squadron RAF, of Prospect, South Australia. A school teacher prior to enlistment, FO Mansell trained in Canada in 1941, before serving with the RAF. On 9 June 1942 he was killed whilst on operations to Essen, Germany, aged 25. The aircraft that he was a crewmember of being a Short Stirling Mk1 bomber, serial number N6084, coded OJ-C. They were 'coned' by several Nazi German searchlights and then hit by heavy anti-aircraft fire, crashing at the town of Hassel, 7 kilometres South East of Dorsten. Mansell was the only Australian among the seven crewmembers of the aircraft, the remaining six all being from the British Isles. He along with his entire crew are buried in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Germany.