Portrait of 426027 Flight Sergeant Kevin Joffre Bingham, 104 Squadron (RAF)

Kevin Joffre Bingham was born in Charters Towers, Queensland on 9 June 1923. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on 23 May 1942. The majority of his training took place in Australia, where he qualified as a navigator. He left Melbourne for the United Kingdom in March 1943 where he underwent further training on bomber aircraft.

Posted to 104 Squadron RAF, flying Wellington X bombers, Bingham, by now a Flight Sergeant, arrived in North Africa at the beginning of December 1943, shortly before the squadron moved to Foggia in Italy, as part of 205 Group RAF, where it undertook raids on northern Italy and the Balkans. Returning from a raid on Porto San Stefano on the coast of Tuscany, early on the morning of 17 February 1944, aboard Wellington X LN334 A (Apple), Bingham's aircraft was on a circuit waiting to be called in to land. The pilot was talking by radio to Flying Control at the aerodrome. Seconds later the plane nose-dived into the ground killing the entire crew. It was thought that the aircraft had iced up as it descended in severe winter weather. Bingham and the other members of the crew are buried in the Bari War Cemetery, Italy.