Minnis, Stanley

Sergeant (Air Gunner)

No. 1796309, 622 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Killed in an aircraft accident on Tuesday 12 September 1944 (aged 19)

Buried:

Sessenheim Communal Cemetery, Bas-Rhin, France (Grave 9)

Commemorated:

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Sloan family grave headstone in Redburn Cemetery, Holywood

BIOGRAPHY

Sergeant (Air Gunner) Stanley Minnis from Roughfort in County Antrim was one of a crew of seven aboard an Avro Lancaster Mark I aircraft (NF965) that took off at 6.27 pm from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk on a mission to bomb Frankfurt.  They were involved in a mid-air collision with another Lancaster bomber and all on board were killed when the two aircraft crashed to the ground on the west bank of the Rhine between Stattmatten and Roeschwoog in France.  The other six crew members who died were:

• Flying Officer George William Owen (aged 25) from Birmingham
• Sergeant Walter Andrew Drewett
• Flying Officer John Robert Umphelby Jamieson (aged 20) Royal Australian Air Force
• Flying Officer Philip John Tofield (aged 21) from Eastleigh, Hampshire
• Flight Sergeant Clifford Alexander Vieritz (aged 20) Royal Australian Air Force
• Sergeant Douglas Thomas Forrest

Sergeant (Air Gunner) Stanley Minnis was 19 when he died and he is commemorated on a headstone in the Sloan family grave in Redburn Cemetery, Holywood.

Henry Sloan died on 14 December 1976 and his wife Lucy died on 9 November 1977.