The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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100423 Flying Officer Alec Edward "Pops" Harris RAF Observer 256 Squadron from:Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire (d.19th Jan 1945) I am Alec Harris' daughter and was ten years old when he and his pilot crashed when taking off from Nice airport in their mosquito in January 1945. My father was the navigator. They were first posted as missing and son after my father's body washed up on a beach just south of Marseilles. He is buried in the British cemetry there. I would be most interested to hear from anyone who may remember my father.He was forty years old when he died and quite the oldest in the squadron where his nickname was "pops". Most members of the squadron would have been much younger so may still be alive. His death affected my mother deeply and she died of cancer in 1960. I think she felt it was a cruel fate in that he died so close to the end of the war and especially after he had been in much more dangerous missions previously. As far as I remember my father was in Malta, North Africa, Sardinia and Fogia, Italy. I have a photo of him also in front of the Sphinx in Egypt but am not sure where this fits in chronologically. If there is any record of his service and a record of where he was and when I would be most grateful to know how to obtain this information. I now live in Oregon in the USA. Sincerely Sally B Smith (nee Harris) Sally Smith Add to this record.  Related Content: No. 256 Squadron Royal Air Force Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.