Laurence Philip Barnett

Air Gunner, 149 (East India) Squadron
Service number 1319840
Died 14 May 1943
Buried Rheinberg War Cemetery, Germany
Age 21

Headstone Inscription
‘I HAVE DIED FOR SOMETHING I BELIEVE IN WITH ALL MY HEART’


Laurence was born on 14 May 1922 in St Pancras, London the son of Maurice, who worked as a billiard marker in 1921, and Julia nee Barnett. The 1939 Register states the family were living at 322 Sydenham Road in Lewisham where Maurice was a special constable and a manager of a leather shop.

Laurence was an air gunner on Stirling BK746 which departed from RAF Lakenheath on a night operation to Bochum. The aircraft was shot down by German night fighter Ofw. Fritz Schellwat 5th/NJG1 in Holzweiler near Immerath. The entire crew were killed and they were initially buried in the cemetery in Mönchen-Gladbach. Later, in 1948, they were all exhumed and reburied in Rheinberg War Cemetery.

Laurence was killed on his 21st Birthday.

Pilot, Harold Earl Forsyth, J/17672 RCAF.
B/A, Yvon Jean Baptiste Guepin, R/108356 RCAF.
A/G, William Mccall, 651839
Nav, Donald Francis McDonald, R/93881 RCAF
F/E, James Joseph Ryan, 614624
W/Op, Donald Ernest Sharpe, 144690
A/G, Laurence Philip Barnett