258

G.D. HEATHCOTE.
2. (centre aligned)

No. 15 Squadron at Mildenhall, Suffolk. With this squadron as navigator of Stirling aircraft, he took part in 9 operational flights the targets including Kassel, Bremen, Ludwigshaven and Leverkusen, in Germany; Boulogne, Montlucon and Modane, in France; and minelaying off the Frisian Islands and in the Kattegat. Late in December he converted to Lancaster bomber aircraft and as navigator of this type of aircraft, took part in a further 13 operational sorties, the targets including Brunswick, Berlin (4), Leipzig, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt (2) and Aachen, all in Germany.

P/O Heathcote was the navigator of a Lancaster bomber aircraft engaged on the night of the 20/21st April, 1944, in bombing Cologne, in Germany. The aircraft failed to return to its base and all the crew, including P/O Heathcote, were classified as missing. This was his 22nd operational flight. Later information was received from a German source through the International Red Cross Committee that the pilot of the aircraft had lost his life and the 5 other unidentified members of the crew had also been killed. In consequence P/O Heathcote was reclassified to missing, believed killed in action. In due course his death was officially presumed to have occurred on the 21st April, 1944. A post war casualty search confirmed that P/O Heathcote was buried in the Cologne South Cemetery, Germany.

There was one other New Zealander in the crew, F/Lt. J.F. Funnell of Auckland.

Find a Grave link with a photo of P/O Heathcote: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18406927/george_dudley-heathcote

5/2/11596 AS2
424 hrs. as navigator.

Mrs. E.M. Heathcote (W) (right aligned)
Waikari, DUNEDIN. (right aligned & town underlined)