Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Price MORRIS (1395797)
221 Squadron Royal Air Force

Date of birth: 26th December 1923
Date of death: 8th March 1945

Killed on active service aged 21
Buried at Rhodes War Cemetery Collective Grave 6 A 2-7
He was born at Birkenhead on the 26th of December 1923, the only son of Sidney Price Morris, civil servant in the Air Ministry, and Ethel Beatrice (nee May) of Woodthorpe, Royston Park Road, Hatch End, Middlesex.

He was educated at the Junior King's School from May 1936 and at the King's School Canterbury from September 1937 to July 1940, where he was in Lattergate House and Walpole House.

He left school early to join the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and after training as a pilot in Canada he was posted to 221 Squadron which at the time of his death was operating from Kalamaki Airfield near Athens. The squadron was operating Wellington bombers and was involved in bombing, anti submarine work and supply drops.

On the 8th of March 1945 Geoffrey Price and his crew took off in Wellington Mk XIII JA105 with four other aircraft from his squadron for a training exercise, under the command of Flight Lieutenant Walter George Steele, to shadow a convoy of naval vessels, 90 miles to the south east of Crete. On completing the exercise, at around 1.30pm, they set course for home. At 1.40pm the aircraft radioed requesting its position but from that time on no other contact was received from the aircraft nor messages acknowledged. The weather in the area at the time was poor with heavy showers, low cloud and electrical storms. Two of the other aircraft on the same mission reported a "plot" of an aircraft close to the island of Milos but a search and rescue operation by other aircraft from the squadron, which also covered the area around Crete and Peloponnese, proved fruitless.

The crew was:-

Flight Lieutenant Walter George Steele (Pilot)
Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Price Morris (Pilot)
Flying Officer Harold Coburn (Navigator)
Flight Lieutenant George Edward McBride (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Frank Winston Peace (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner)
Warrant Officer Brodie Eric Dudley Snowden (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner)

Their bodies were later recovered and were buried together.
Walpole House

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