HORSTMANN, Ronald Leslie
| Service Number: | 429960 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 10 October 1942 |
| Last Rank: | Flight Sergeant |
| Last Unit: | No. 12 Squadron (RAF) |
| Born: | Netherleigh, South Australia, 28 April 1922 |
| Home Town: | Lameroo, Southern Mallee, South Australia |
| Schooling: | Mannum Higher Primary & Adelaide High Schools, SA |
| Occupation: | Bank Clerk |
| Died: | Flying Battle, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, 4 March 1945, aged 22 years |
| Cemetery: |
Cambridge City Cemetery, United Kingdom Grave 15103. |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, International Bomber Command Centre Memorial, Swan Reach War Memorial |
World War 2 Service
| 10 Oct 1942: | Involvement Flight Sergeant, 429960, No. 12 Squadron (RAAF) | |
|---|---|---|
| 10 Oct 1942: | Enlisted Adelaide | |
| 10 Oct 1942: | Enlisted Royal Australian Air Force, Flight Sergeant, 429960 | |
| 4 Mar 1945: | Involvement Royal Australian Air Force, 429960, No. 12 Squadron (RAF) |
Help us honour Ronald Leslie Horstmann's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Geoffrey Gillon
Flight Sergeant HORSTMANN was 22 and a son of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm HORSTMANN & Blondine Alvine NUSKE who married in Mannum, SA on 8th June 1909 - husband of Elva Grace Horstmann, of Netherleigh, South Australia.
His brother, Private Leo Stanley HORSTMANN
Service Number: SX2230, aged 26 of the Australian Infantry-A.I.F. 2/10 Bn. fell in Libya on 21st May 1941
Another Brother Arnold Edgar HORSTMANN (SN 416118) served in the RAAF & was discharged in 1946
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Lancaster bomber ME 323, Code named PH-P, of 12 Squadron was shot down by intruder between East Stockwith and Blyton during a night training flight. The crew of 7, 5 of whom were Australian Flight Sergeants were killed.
A relatively new memorial on the village green in East Stockwith, Lincolnshire incorporates a propeller blade from the actual aircraft and remembers a 12 Sqn crew lost on 03-04/03/45.
Lancaster ME323 PH-P had departed Wickenby for a routine night training flight.
It was intercepted near Hull by a Luftwaffe Intruder captained by Lt Gunther Wolf (IX/NJG5) and shot down for his 4th Abschusse at 0108.
The aircraft crashed between the villages of East Stockwith and Blyton at 0110 with the loss of all seven crew.
This loss was one of the many victims of the Luftwaffe's infamous but ill-fated Unternehman Gisela (Operation Gisela) when large numbers of enemy aircraft on "Intruder Ops" infiltrated the bomber stream returning to the UK from Ops Kamen. They wrought havoc shooting down multiple aircraft across the length of the East Coast of England but sustained significant losses themselves in what was regarded as the Lutfwaffe's "last-ditch action" at this stage of WWII
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