“Reading such news was very difficult for her to accept to the extent that she never again locked the doors of the bungalow, believing that Roy would come home one day.” I’m delighted that Roy and the other 5 crew members are being formally recognised for what they did, but I also remember how sad Auntie Ket was on hearing that Roy was missing, presumed dead. “When I saw the MOD’s appeal, I had mixed emotions reading it and how it resurrected the sadness Auntie Ket felt at the time. “I was only one year old when Roy was killed so I don’t remember that day but I used to visit Auntie Ket with my mam and dad. Mrs Joseph (74), now living in Derbyshire, was able to confirm to JCCC that Sgt Williams’s father, Robert Penry Williams, and his mother, Ketura, have both passed away but that she remembered visiting Ketura when she was younger. One of Sgt Williams’s relatives traced by the appeal is Mrs Elizabeth Joseph, Roy’s first cousin once removed. The successful appeal means all of the crew’s families have now been found and a service will take place in the Netherlands on 15 September to re-dedicate 2 new headstones bearing the names of each of those who died. However, recent research by the JCCC, and a review of evidence submitted by the Royal Netherlands Army, has confirmed all 6 airmen are buried in a communal grave at Leeuwarden Cemetery in the Netherlands. The crew were believed to be buried locally but their precise resting place was unknown. The mission was successful but on their return to the UK, Sgt Williams and the other 5 crew members were killed when the aircraft was shot down by a German fighter near Boznum in the Netherlands. Sgt Williams (21), from Bridgend, was the radio operator on Wellington R1397 of 103 Squadron RAF, when it took off from RAF Elsham Wolds in Lincolnshire on 25 July 1941 on a mission to bomb the German town of Emden. Last month, MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre ( JCCC), part of Defence Business Services, appealed for the family of Sgt Roy Penry Williams to come forward. The Ministry of Defence ( MOD) is pressing ahead with re-dedicating the graves of a World War 2 Wellington bomber crew after successfully locating the relatives of the last remaining airman.
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