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.

[Chris Goss]

....and Andy you have this in the wrong section!

[Andy Saunders]

Ooops! Sorry Chris, but thanks for pointing it out. I'll take a hundred lines and go to the naughty corner.

[Chris Goss]

See how it spookily moved??

[Andy Saunders]

Spooky indeed! Just as spooky was the fact that after a very long delay I finally had an answer from Edinburgh Library which unlocked the mystery just seconds after posting my query!! I have gone back to AHB/CWGC with the information I have obtained asking that it be looked at again, is confirmed by AHB from the cemetery and errors in CWGC records amended with a CWGC headstone placed on his grave if it is unmarked.