Flying Officer Donald Gordon GLENNIE (74674)
61 Squadron Royal Air Force

Date of birth: 12th October 1918
Date of death: 8th April 1941

Killed in action aged 22
Buried at Kiel War Cemetery Plot 5 Row 13 Grave 11
He was born at Sudbury, Suffolk on the 12th of October 1918 the son of Patrick Gordon Glennie, civil servant, and Grace Marian (nee King) of Saltwood, Onslow Crescent, Woking.

He was educated at Nevill House, Eastbourne and at the King’s School Canterbury from September 1932 to July 1937 where he was in The Grange. He was Senior Scholar, a school monitor, a Sergeant in the Officer Training Corps and was Hon Secretary of the Harvey Society and of the Wireless Society. On leaving King’s he won a Parker Exhibition to Corpus Christi College Cambridge. In 1939 he was in charge of meteorology during the Cambridge (Myvatn) Expedition to Iceland.

Following the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and rose to the rank of Sergeant before being commissioned as a Pilot Officer on the 3rd of October 1939. He was married in the summer of 1940 to Dorothy Margaret (nee Macgregor); they had a son, Ian Gordon, born on the 27th of September 1941. He was posted to 61 Squadron and was promoted to Flying Officer on the 3rd of October 1940.

On the 8th of April 1941 Bomber Command launched a further operation against the city of Kiel There had been a raid the night before which had been the largest of the war to date and had caused extensive damage to the dock area. 160 aircraft were dispatched, 74 Wellingtons, 29 Hampdens, 44 Whitleys, 12 Manchesters and 1 Stirling aircraft. From the reports of the returning crews it seems that the bombing fell more on the town than on the dock facilities as they had the night before. A large number of buildings were destroyed and gas and electricity supplies were cut off. The two raids were considered to be the most successful of the war to date.

Donald Glennie and his crew took off at 6.50pm from RAF Hemswell in Hampden Mk I AD827 QR- for the operation. The aircraft was hit by anti aircraft fire and crashed in flames on the Postsee, some three kilometres to the west of Preetz in Holstein, killing the entire crew.

The crew was: -

Flying Officer David Gordon Glennie (Pilot)
Pilot Officer Gordon Frederick Chipperfield (2nd Pilot/Navigator)
Sergeant John Gordon Donnelly (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner)
Sergeant Claude Percival Thomas (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner)

Theirs was the first aircraft from the squadron to go missing due to enemy action during the war and was one of four lost on the raid with nine others crashing on their return to England.

His wife received the following telegram dated the 14th of June 1941: - "Regret to inform you that information received through the International Red Cross states that your husband Flying Officer Donald Gordon Glennie reported missing is now reported missing but believed to have lost his life as the result of air operations on April 9th 1941. Any further information received will be communicated to you immediately."

The crew were buried together at Preetz Cemetery on the 12th of April 1941 with each coffin being carried by six German soldiers. Their bodies were exhumed on the 11th of December 1947 and moved to their present location.
The Grange

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