Flying Officer Charles Andrew WALLIS (39180)
233 Squadron Royal Air Force

Date of birth: 1st December 1915
Date of death: 21st June 1940

Killed in action aged 24
Buried at Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery British Plot G20
He was born at Burnley on the 1st of December 1915 the son of the Reverend Canon John Eyre Winstanley Wallis, Vicar of Whalley, Blackburn and Violet Clara Kington (nee Statham) later of 15 The Close, Litchfield in Staffordshire.

He was educated at the Junior King’s School from September 1925 and at the King’s School Canterbury from September 1929 to July 1932 where he was in School House.

He was granted a short service commission in the Royal Air Force as an Acting Pilot Officer on the 12th of October 1936 and was confirmed in his rank on the 17th of August 1937. After training he was posted to 233 Squadron who were operating Lockheed Hudson aircraft. The squadron was involved in anti shipping sweeps in April 1940 during the German invasion of Norway. On the 11th of June 1940 he was admitted to Rossie Priory Auxiliary Hospital at Inchture suffering from "exhaustion after intensive flying".

On the 21st of June 1940 Charles Wallis and his crew took off from RAF Leuchars at 1.20pm in Hudson Mark 1 N7246 ZS-X in company with another Hudson from 233 Squadron along with two aircraft from 224 Squadron for an attack on the German battleship “Scharnhorst” and eight enemy destroyers which were in the coastal waters off Norway. An attack was carried out with two 500lb bombs from just under the cloud base at 10,000 feet both of which overshot the target by 200 yards. Intense flak was encountered from ships in the area and the formation was engaged by between forty to fifty Messerschmitt 110 and 109 fighters. Grey smoke was observed coming from Charles Wallis' aircraft which crashed in flames into the sea off Utsire at 4.10pm. The victory was claimed by Oberleutnant Bertold Jung of 5/JG77 who was flying a Me109, his second of an eventual seven victories before he was shot down by flak and captured at Crete on the 12th of September 1941. The other aircraft from the squadron were badly damaged in the attack but managed to return.

The crew was: -

Squadron Leader Dunstan Yves Feeny (Pilot)
Flying Officer Charles Andrew Wallis (Navigator)
Sergeant Charles Grant Macnab Wilson (Wireless Operator)
Sergeant George William Eric Walton (Air Gunner)

The bodies of his three fellow crew members were not recovered.

His father received the following telegram dated the 22nd of June 1940: -

"Regret to inform you that your son Flying Officer Charles Andrew Wallis is reported missing as the result of air operations on 21st June 1940. Letter follows. Any further information will be immediately communicated to you. Should you receive news of him from any source please inform this department."

An Air Ministry report dated the 16th of April 1946 stated: -

"Towards the end of June 1940 some fishermen found the body of an English airman drifting in the sea. The fishermen took the body from the sea and conveyed it to Solsvik on the island of Sotra. The people of the island made preparations in secret to bury the airman. A coffin was made and the Padre at Landro, three miles from Solsvik, was asked to conduct the ceremony. On the day of the funeral, the 29th June 1940, three small vessels put out from Solsvik. On the deck of the first ship lay the coffin bedecked with flowers and a Norwegian flag. The other two vessels were crowded with people who came to follow the English flyer to his resting place. Two hundred people were present at the funeral. The grave has been well kept by the local authorities and people volunteer to keep it neat and tidy (in Fjell Churchyard).

His body was reinterred at its present location in 1947.

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