Mustang I RAF Loss - "Missing" pilot

[Andy Saunders]

I wonder if any forum contributors can help solve a mystery?

On 15 August 1942 a Mustang I, AL983 of 169 Squadron, dived into the ground at East Marden, Sussex, killing Flying Officer George Bernard PENMAN, 44656. Penman's body was returned to the family via Waverley Station, Edinburgh, by local undertakers F A Hollands & Co. However, Penman is recorded as missing with no known grave and is recorded on Panel 289 of the Runnymede Memorial. The Air Historical Branch have confirmed his status (ie missing, no known grave) but there is clearly something adrift here. Certainly, his body was recovered. What happened thereafter is a mystery to me. There seem to be three possibilities:

a) his grave location has been lost/not recorded
b) he was cremated and not otherwise commemorated/memorialised
c) he was buried at sea

I have occasionaly come across instances of each of these type of cases and which have thereby triggered the no-known-grave criteria to result in commemoration by the CWGC of such casualties.

Can anyone throw any light? Presumably, if either a,b or c then this would have been somewhere in the Edinburgh area?

Andy Saunders

UPDATE! No sooner posted than I discover he is buried at Camelon Cemetery, Falkirk, in Grave 407 of Section 3. Seems that he has just been "lost" somewhere and somehow in the records. He was buried there on 20 August 1942. Thus his commemoration at Runnymede is in error.