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Flying Officer Folliott Victor Polhill TURNER (130700)
1654 Heavy Conversion Unit, Royal Air Force Date of birth: 29th October 1914 Date of death: 24th May 1943 Killed on active service aged 28 Buried at Hellingly Cemetery in Sussex Grave 205/244
Folliott Victor Polhill Turner was born on the 29th of October 1914 the elder son of Dr Oliver Polhill Turner MD, Medical Inspector of Schools at Hastings, and Amy Charlotte (nee Keysell) Turner of 119 Marina, St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Manor House from May 1928. He was appointed as a House Captain in 1932 and gained his School Certificate in 1931. He was a member of the Officer Training Corps where he achieved Certificate A in 1932. On leaving school he went on to Harper Adam's College in Shropshire for three years to study poultry farming, after which he became a poultry farmer and lived at “Chestnuts”, Hailsham Road, Hailsham in Sussex. During the war he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve rising to the rank of Acting Corporal before being commissioned as a Pilot Officer on the 20th of October 1942. He was promoted to Flying Officer on the 20th of April 1943. After his initial training he was posted to 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit based at RAF Wigsley for final training on heavy bombers. Fulliott Turner and his crew took off from RAF Wigsley at 11.23pm on the 23rd of May 1943 in Lancaster Mk 1 W4303 UG-D for a night navigation exercise involving co-operation with fighters. The excercise formed the final part of training for Heavy Conversion Units and involved flying to a town in the UK and making a dummy bombing run over it. It also provided the opportunity for the local defences to be tested. This was to be the crew's final flight together before they went operational. The aircraft was routed towards Hull and, at 3am, if was flying over the city at 10,000 feet it was lit up by a number of searchlights and took drastic evasive action to avoid them by entering a diving turn. During this manouvre, the two tail fins failed and the aircraft broke up and crashed near the village of Humbleton, about nine miles to the east of Hull at 3.08am, scattering debris over a wide area and killing the entire crew. The crew was:- Pilot Officer Geoffrey Nigel James Bryde RAAF (Pilot) Sergeant Colin Alexander Nelson RAAF (Flight Engineer) Pilot Officer John Albert Walker DFM (Navigator) Flying Officer Fulliott Victor Polhill Turner (Navigator) Sergeant James Henry Roy Harper (Bomb Aimer) Sergeant William Neill McMullan (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner) Pilot Officer Lancelot Herbert Parker (Air Gunner) Sergeant Donald Fred Smith (Air Gunner)

Manor House