Historian Richard Houghton remembers West Lancashire’s WWII heroes

Nov 29 2012 by Gary Bainbridge, Ormskirk Advertiser

AS WE say goodbye to the month of November, we remember some of the men who were killed in World War II.

Robert Abram, 19, died on November 28, 1943. He was the son of Robert and Elizabeth Ellen Abram, of Hoscar, Lathom.

In April, 1943, he was deployed to a Town Class light cruiser in the Mediterranean, which was torpedoed by the German submarine U-407 off Cyrenaica.

Edward Lyon was killed during operational training on November 11, 1943, aged 20.

His brother, Robert Lyon, died on November 21, 1940, aged 17. He was the son of Elizabeth Lyon of Burscough, and is buried in Burscough St John Churchyard.

The family lived adjacent to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, in a cottage on the canal bank.

On November 21, 1940, on a cold foggy night, he was riding down the canal to duty when he fell into the water and drowned.

The burial of two service family members in the same grave is unusual, although the district has the Prescott brothers buried at Halsall Parish Church.

Pilot officer Wilfred Wilkinson was killed in action on November 16, 1943, age 23. He was the son of John Jackson Wilkinson and Jane Wilkinson.

Wilfried was flying in an Avro Lancaster B1, JB363 (GT-K) which was lost on November 18, 1943. On this night, JB363 was pathfinder leader, for a major raid on Berlin, and was carrying the four markers on which the main force was to bomb.

On return, she was brought down in flames over Doberitz, west of Berlin. Only three bodies were recoverable from the wreckage, the pilot and two air gunners who are buried in the 1939- 45 Memorial Cemetery, in Berlin.

Wilkinson and the rest of the crew are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, in Surrey, alongside all other airmen who have no known grave.