Laurence was born in 1922 in St Pancras, London the son of Maurice and Julia 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 a night-fighter and crashed at Immerath, SSW of Mönchengladbach, Germany killing all the crew. They are all buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery.

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