Name
Stanley Maurice Lawrence
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
16/06/1941
23
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Aircraftman 1st Class
906737
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
208 Sqdn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
DAMASCUS COMMONWEALTH WAR CEMETERY
Q. 85.
Syria
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St. Saviour's Church Memorial, Hitchin, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin, All Saints Church Memorial, Willian
Biography
Before the war he was educated at Wilshere Dacre School and later employed by the Eastern National Omnibus Company.
He volunteered for the R.A.F. in 1939 and held Service Number 906737 and was a member of 208 Squadron. At 14.55hrs on the 16th June 1941 he was killed instantly whilst driving a refuelling lorry during an enemy air raid on a desert airfield in Transjordan known as H4. His companion 650199 LAC S. May was blown out of the truck and was hospitalised as a result of multiple abrasions. H4 was a point on the oil pipeline from Kirkuk in Iraq to Haifa in Palestine and was probably a pumping station.
He was buried in Grave Q85 in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Damascus in Syria. He is also mentioned on Grave 198, Willian Churchyard, Herts.
His wife was Mrs Doris Lawrence of 8, Willian Cottages, Letchworth and they had married in Blackpool on the 1st June 1940. His parents, Henry and Mary Lawrence, lived at 71 , Walsworth Rd, Hitchin and he was the youngest of four sons.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, ‘RAF Squadrons’ by C.G. Clifford, ‘The Second Great War’ by J. Hammerton, Paul Johnson - local historian, Herts Pictorial dated 24th June 1941
