279

R.J. MINNIS.
2. (centre aligned)

Shortly after arrival in the United Kingdom, P/O Minnis was posted to No. 22 Operational Training Unit, Wellesbourne-Mountford, Warwickshire, where he crewed up and completed his training on Wellington bomber aircraft. On the 23rd July, 1941 he joined No. 77 Squadron at Leeming, Yorkshire. With this squadron as a wireless operator air gunner on Whitley aircraft, he flew on 7 operational missions, the targets including Frankfurt, Hanover, Bremen and Cologne, in Germany and Dunkirk, in France.

P/O Minnis was the wireless operator air gunner on a Whitley bomber aircraft which took off on air operations to the target of Huls in Germany on the night of the 6/7th September 1941, and failed to return to its base. All the members of the crew were classified as missing. Later, due to information received by Air Ministry, P/O Minnis was reclassified as missing, believed killed. Subsequently his death was officially presumed to have occurred on the 7th September 1941. Information received from a German source through the International Red Cross Committee states that P/O Minnis is buried (redacted at Gemeindefriedhof) in the Parish Cemetery, Quakenbruck, in the Province of Hanover, Germany.

Find a Grave link with colourised photo of P/O Minnis: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18407649/richard-john-minnis

5/3/1348 AS2
175 hrs. as W/O A/G.

Mr. J.R. Minnis (F) (right aligned)
47 Nairn St., WELLINGTON. (right aligned & city underlined)