Frank Henry WHITTINGTON
Image from the Oxford Mail, 22 November 1944.
Frank Whittington was born on 17 September 1921, the illegitimate son of Edith Whittington, who lived in Thames Street, St Ebbe’s. When Frank was ten years old his mother married Frank Wheeler, a cabinet maker, who lived at 12 Summerfield, New Hinksey. Frank Wheeler and his brother Frederick had both served in the First World War, and Frederick had been killed in action.
After Edith’s marriage, she and her son Frank (who kept his mother’s surname of Whittington) moved to live with Frank Wheeler in New Hinksey. Edith and Frank senior had a son, John, in 1932. Frank junior went to South Oxford School on Thames Street.
By 1939 the family had moved to 23 Lincoln Road. Frank’s stepfather had become a master cabinet-maker, and Frank was working as an apprentice builder’s joiner. He turned eighteen two weeks after the outbreak of war in September 1939.
Frank joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and served with 622 Squadron as a Flight Engineer. The squadron operated out of RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, flying Lancaster bombers. On 25 July 1944 Frank’s plane was one of seventeen Lancasters which did not return from a night operation to bomb Stuttgart in Germany. Later it was found to have crashed near Nancy in north-east France, with the loss of all eight crew members. Frank was 22.
Frank’s death was reported in the Oxford Mail four months later, on 22 November 1944. His and his fellow crewmen's remains were interred at the municipal cemetery in the village of Avrainville, 15km north-west of Nancy. They were reburied in July 1950 at nearby Choloy War Cemetery. The inscription on Frank’s gravestone reads ‘For you, dear, peace / For us, precious memories’.
Frank is also commemorated on the Oxford City Second World War Roll of Honour which is in the church of St Michael at the Northgate on Cornmarket.
Franks’ stepfather Frank and mother Edith remained at 23 Lincoln Road until their deaths in 1972 and 1982 respectively. His half-brother John died in Oxford in 1998.
Research by Siobhan Lancaster; with thanks to Lesley Dewhurst.