Name
Ronald John Fraas
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
08/07/1941
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Flying Officer
65504
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
405 (R.C.A.F.) Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HITCHIN CEMETERY
CV 1B.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin, Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2)
Biography
Before attending the Grammar School he was a pupil at the British Schools in Hitchin. He was at the Hitchin Grammar School from 1926-1932 and obtained an Oxford Senior School Certificate and then became a pupil teacher at Wilshere Dacre School but this lacked appeal and he joined the Prudential Assurance Co. in Hitchin.
His friend Norman Beck wrote that he was a keen and popular worker for a number of years in the Hitchin Church Adult Classes and in the Branch work of the Mission to Seamen. "He was of a generous nature, giving where circumstances were deserving, though he never mentioned such matters and it only became known in roundabout ways".
He was keen on flying before the war and joined the Civil Air Guard. In September 1939 he qualified for his wings and was commissioned on the 1st May 1940 and was expecting further promotion. His Service Number was 65504. He had flown on 20 operational raids and was flying Wellington IIs with the Canadian 405 Squadron at Pocklington, near York Returning from a raid over Dortmund, he was badly burnt when the Wellington bomber W5490 LQ-D he was piloting had the starboard engine hit by flak and gradually a fire developed. The aircraft had taken off at 22 40hrs on the 6th July from Pocklington and crashed at 04.06hrs on the 7th July while circling the airfield preparing to land. His parents went to a northern hospital to see him, but he died the following day without regaining consciousness. His funeral was in St. Mary's Church in Hitchin on the 12th July 1941.
In a letter to his parents, John William and Minnie Fraas of 102, Bearton Road, Hitchin, his Senior Intelligence Officer wrote of him "He has been an outstanding bomber pilot, gifted, careful, bold and unfailingly reliable in word and deed". Of the rest of his crew, there was one fatality and four injured.
Additional Information
A Hitchin Cemetery stone at Grave 106, West Extension reads "In loving memory of a very dear son and brother Ronald John Fraas Flying Officer RAF. killed in action 8th July 1941 aged 26 years. He died that we might live".
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers, Paul Johnson - local historian, Mr Robert Elliott - Shuttleworth Archivist, ‘RAF Bomber Command Losses’ by W.R. Chorley, Herts & Beds Express, Herts Pictorial dated 15th July 1941
