Red rose on a pilot's grave - sixty years on

This story is submitted by Helen Hughes of the People's War team in Wales on behalf of Anne Lawrence, and is added to the site with her permission.

Serving with the Wrens in the war were the best years of my life, until the end of the war. I had a boyfriend; I’d known him since I was ten. He was the pilot of a Halifax bomber a flight lieutenant and on the third of February 1945 he was killed in action. The plane crashed in a village in Holland…and this weekend I went to visit his grave. It was devastating. I wrote to the historical society at Bentley Priory. They gave me a whole list of what happened. They gave me the number of his plane…he took off from East Melbourne, Yorkshire, on a raid to Wanne Eickel, an oil refinery in Germany, and the exact time he took off 20.32 hours. The whole of his crew, the seven members of his crew, were lost. He was first buried in a small churchyard in Holland and then taken to Jonkerbos Military Cemetary which is at Nijmegen, where I’ve just been with my son (summer 2005).

In Southampton, where I was serving as a Wren, I was summoned to the Commanding Officers office and I went down this long corridor quite happily, thinking “I’ve not been up to anything that warrants me going down to see Third Officer Griffiths”… When I knocked on the door she said “come in and sit down”, and then she said “I’ve had a phone call from your aunt Mrs. Challis of Barham Hall, Linton, Cambridge. I have to tell you Flt Lt Gibbs has been killed in action.” And apparently I got up and said “Thank you, ma’am. That is war”. I never shed a tear then. I didn’t even know where he was. I couldn’t. Years later, my son, who is a Sgt Major in the Royal Regiment of Wales told me he was going to Holland. I said to him “Could you find me Ron’s grave?” “Yes,” he said “where is it?” and I thought: "I don’t know", and suddenly the name Nijmegen came into my head as if someone said Nijmegen…and a few days later I had a phone call from my daughter-in-law and she said could I give her his full name and rank, which I did. And a couple of days after that I had a phone call from Charles saying I’m standing next to Flt Lt Gibbs’ grave. Although they’ve got him down as Flying Officer he was promoted just before he was killed. But where he is…it’s a beautiful place, there are flowers. I took just one red rose. That goes back to childhood again. We used to spend our summer holidays with my aunt in Cambridge, and I always used to have a birthday card until I was 13, and I went down “Where’s my birthday card”..he said “I’m not spending money on you” and went outside and came back with a red rose and said “there you are” . So I had one on my 13th, 14th, 15th birthday and we sort of parted…he went in to the RAF and our paths crossed again in February 1942 and I had a red rose on my 18th birthday and my 19th birthday… and I had one on my 21st and then he was killed. Although I married I still have his photograph in my house. Photographs of when we were children, and when I got married my mother was there and I said “Where’s my photograph?” “Now you’re married, I’ve put it in the drawer” and I said “Whatever drawer you put it in — take it out and put it back”. So my husband then said: “Who is he”. I said “He was killed in 1945 — you don’t need to know any more” — he just had to accept that. The one who’s in Holland came first….and there’s a lot of people like that.

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