Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Reginald Stanley Hogben was born 9th March 1923 in Port Pirie, South Australia. He was the youngest child and only son of Stanley Washington Day Hogben and Ethel May Hogben (nee Hopkins). At that time, his mother ran a successful general store in Port Pirie West and his father was a carrier, in partnership as ‘Hogben & Backstrom’. Around 1925 the family sold up and moved to the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg, but things were pretty tough as it was the beginning of the Great Depression, so after a couple of years the family moved back to Solomontown, Port Pirie. During the Depression his father made a meagre living carting wood, later establishing a wood-yard on Esmond Road, Port Pirie, called ‘Hogben & Ramsay’.

By all accounts, Reg was popular and intelligent child, he excelled at sport, particularly cricket and Australian Rules football. He played football for the Solomontown School, High School, and Solomontown ‘A’ grade side, before being selected by North Adelaide, where he won the Tomkins medal for the fairest and most brilliant player in the Senior Colts’ Football League (under 19s) in 1940. He played eleven games as a professional footballer for the North Adelaide Football Club during the 1941 season, before his fledgling career was cut short. He was also a member of the Prospect Cricket Club ‘B’ grade team.

The News (Adelaide, SA) for Monday 21 July 1941, states that Reg Hogben, promising young North Adelaide footballer, was one of three prominent sportsmen among the reservists called up by the RAAF that day, and that the trainees will go to Mount Breckan, Victor Harbor, that night. As an Air Force reservist, he had previously attended the Elementary Flying Training School at Parafield, to undertake basic training in Tiger Moth bi-planes.

After further training in Canada, he was assigned to 460 Squadron, which was attached to the RAF in the United Kingdom, and he was promoted to Flight Sergeant with effect from 1st August 1942. Reg was declared missing-in-action after a flying battle over Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland), on 20th April 1943. He was the pilot of Lancaster W4325, which took off from RAF Breighton in Yorkshire, England, to undertake a bombing raid on the U-Boat yards at the port of Stettin. The plane never returned from the mission, and although the bodies of two other crew members were eventually recovered off the coast of Zealand, Denmark, Reg’s body was never identified, and he was officially declared dead on 12th May 1944. He is remembered with honour at the Runnymede Memorial, Surrey, United Kingdom.

Helen Thiselton
(Great-niece of Reginald Stanley Hogben)