Robin William Morton left his rural New Zealand home for Canada as part of an RAF scheme to produce the thousands of air crew required for the Second World War. He eventually joined 18 Squadron, a bomber unit which had seen action in the disastrous French campaign of 1940.
On the night of his death, Robin and his crew took off at 0.20hrs in a Bristol Blenheim Mk 4 on an "intruder" mission to St Trond airfield, Belgium. These missions were flown against German bombers returning to their European bases after raids on the UK. Added to the usual dangers of night flying over a dark landscape, "intruder" crews faced the dangers of enemy air gunners and the ground defences of enemy bases. The Blenheim was a twin-engined bomber, which would have attacked the airfield with light bombs during the brief time the airfield lights were switched on for the landing of a returning enemy plane.
The Blenheim and crew were not seen again over the British Isles. Whether through enemy action, pilot error or mechanical problems, plane and crew were lost.
Robin Morton and his crew have no known graves and it can be assumed that they and their Blenheim crashed, for whatever reason, in the North Sea and lie there still.
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| Crookston cemetery, Otago. |
I wonder which part of " rural New Zealand " ( or Sth Otago ), he came from??
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