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Pilot Officer Bruce Douglas George Houstoun REID (42438)
107 Squadron, Royal Air Force Date of birth: 6th March 1920 Date of death: 12th June 1940 Killed in action aged 20 Buried at St Sever Cemetery Extension Rouen Block S Plot 4 Row T Grave 10
Bruce Douglas George Houstoun Reid was born at Melbourne in Australia on the 6th of March 1920 the elder son of Douglas Houstoun Rupert Reid and Enid Nellie (nee Browne) Reid of "The Ridge", Old Hunstanton in Norfolk. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Heads House from September 1933 to 1938. He was a member of the Football XI in 1936 and 1937 and was appointed as a House Captain in 1938. He was commissioned as an Acting Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force on the 5th of August 1939 and was confirmed in that rank on the 24th of March 1940. Bruce Reid and his crew took off from RAF Wattisham at 9.35am on the morning of the 12th of June 1940 in Blenheim Mk IV R3810 OM-? for an operation to attack German troop concentrations at La Mare, near Rouen. The aircraft was carrying two 250lb general purpose bombs and one hundred and twenty 4lb incendiary bombs. The aircraft encountered severe anti aircraft fire over the target, caught fire and crashed at a railway embankment to the east of the village of Aubevoye, some three hundred yards from the banks of the River Seine killing the entire crew. The crew was:- Pilot Officer Bruce Douglas George Houston Reid (Pilot) Sergeant Robert William Lawrence (Observer) Sergeant Charles Alfred Bartlett (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner) His father received the following telegram dated the 13th of June 1940: - "Regret to inform you that your son Pilot Officer Bruce Douglas George Houston Reid is reported on 12th June 1940 missing as the result of air operations. Letter follows. Any further information will be immediately communicated to you. Should you receive news of him from any source please inform this department." The village had been evacuated due to the rapid German advance but the crash was witnessed by Monsieur Rouy, secretary to the village mayor. He saw the aircraft flying low and saw two crew members bail out but, as the aircraft was so low, neither of their parachutes deployed and they were killed. The body of the third member of the crew was found in the wreckage. The three men were buried at the crash site. When the villagers returned they sought permission to move the bodies to the village cemetery. This was granted and the bodies were exhumed and reinterred on the 21st of January 1941 and marked as unknown English airmen. The three men were indentified in 1946 and were later moved again to their present site. His younger brother, Midshipman Ian Henry Reid RN HMS Barham, Royal Navy, was killed in action on the 25th of November 1941. He is commemorated on the war memorial at St Mary's Church, Old Hunstanton.

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