Munce, Ian Lindsay (Ian)

Pilot Officer (Pilot)

No. 186936, 220 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Killed in an aircraft accident on Thursday 8 March 1945 (aged 23)

Buried:

Lajes War Cemetery, Azores (Row B Grave 8)

Commemorated:

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Holywood and District War Memorial

Sullivan Upper School Holywood

Methodist College Belfast

Queen’s University Belfast

Family grave headstone in Holywood Cemetery

BIOGRAPHY

Ian Lindsay Munce was born on 30 December 1921 and he was the younger son of James Stillwell Munce and Annie Munce (nee Bearsley) who lived in Marine Parade, Holywood.  James Stillwell Munce from Alexandra Park, Holywood was a civil engineer and architect when he and Annie Bearsley from Old Meldrum, Aberdeenshire were married on 20 October 1916 in the Palace Hotel, Castle Street, Edinburgh after Banns according to the form of the United Free Church of Scotland.  They had two children:

James Frederick (born 11 May 1918)

Ian Lindsay (born 30 December 1921)

In the early 1900s James Stillwell Munce worked in Belfast before he moved to London where he met Annie Bearsley.  She was working as a clerk in the Savings Bank Department of the General Post Office (GPO).  He returned to Belfast and set up his own business before entering a partnership to form the company Munce and Kennedy.

Ian Lindsay Munce was educated privately before attending Sullivan Upper School in Holywood from 1930 until 1936.  Then he attended Methodist College Belfast.  His mother Annie died on 4 June 1940 (aged 56).

During the Second World War Ian Lindsay Munce served with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and he was 23 when he was killed on active service in the Azores on 8 March 1945.  He was buried in Lajes War Cemetery.

Pilot Officer Ian Lindsay Munce was one of eight men killed in the incident.  They were aboard a Consolidated B-24 Liberator aircraft (GR.VI KG913) dispatched to carry out an air-sea rescue mission.  During take-off the starboard outer propeller struck the runway and the aircraft swung violently to the right before crashing in flames.

Pilot Officer Ian Lindsay Munce (No. 186936) is commemorated on Holywood and District War Memorial; in Sullivan Upper School; in Methodist College; in Queen’s University, Belfast and on the family grave headstone in Holywood Cemetery.  During the Second World War his brother, James Frederick Munce, served with the Royal Engineers and after the war he joined his father’s business.  James Frederick Munce carried on the business after his father, James Stillwell Munce, died on 15 July 1952 (aged 74).  James Frederick Munce died in 1990.