John Turner was born in Kent in 1916, where his father Reginald was stationed as a soldier at Shorncliffe Barracks. Reginald came originally from St Ebbe’s in Oxford but had emigrated to Canada at the age of twenty, in 1908, and joined the army there. He served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War, and hence found himself back in England. There he met Gladys Ottewell, who was a cook and general servant originally from Derby. The couple married in 1915 and their son John was born on 15 September the following year, in Folkestone. Reginald served at the front in France and Belgium and suffered several injuries and illnesses. After the war, in 1919, he, Gladys and John – now aged three – moved to Wootton near Woodstock, about twelve miles north of Reginald’s home city of Oxford.

John’s mother Gladys died the following year, in February 1920, aged 28. His father Reginald remarried a few months later to a widow, Sarah Higgins, who had a daughter, Ivy, who was about five years older than John. Sarah’s first husband had been landlord of the Killingworth Castle, a pub in Wootton, and by the time of the 1921 census, Reginald and Sarah had taken on the licence and were living there and running the pub.

The family moved into Oxford, and by 1930, when he was fourteen, John had become a pupil at the City of Oxford High School for Boys, in George Street. He stayed there until he was seventeen. He then got a job as a furnishings salesman at Elliston & Cavell, the well-known department store on Magdalen Street (later Debenhams). He also joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and would have expected to be called up immediately if war broke out.

On 4 September 1939, the day after war was declared, John married Ethel Collins at Oxford Registry Office. Ethel was from Church Street (now Vicarage Road) in New Hinksey, and worked as a shop assistant in a tobacconist’s. The 1939 register, taken three weeks after their wedding, records John and Ethel living at 22 Banbury Road, with John’s stepmother Sarah. His father Reginald was living nearby at 8 Wellington Square, in a boarding house, working as a plumbing, heating and sanitary engineer.

John was called up and joined 97 Squadron. During the war Ethel moved to 30 Norreys Avenue in New Hinksey, and her and John’s daughter Julia was born on 27 May 1940.

97 Squadron flew Lancaster Bombers out of RAF Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire. John became a Pilot Officer (Air Gunner) on 1 May 1942. He was killed five months later when his plane was taking part in a raid on Cologne, on 15 October 1942. He was 26.

John’s remains were interred at Rheinberg War Cemetery, western Germany, in a joint grave with those of DB Murdoch, a Pilot Officer who died on the same day, probably in the same plane. Both men were reinterred at Cologne South Cemetery in May 1946.

On 23 October 1942, the Oxford Mail reported that John was “missing after operations”. The memorial at St John the Evangelist Church in New Hinksey gives his date of death as 24 October, but it is likely that he died on 15 October, as stated in Commonwealth War Grave Commission records.

John Turner is remembered on the Oxford City Second World War Roll of Honour which is in the church of St Michael at the Northgate on Cornmarket. A commemoration service for former pupils of the City of Oxford High School for Boys was held at Christ Church Cathedral on 27 March 1947. John’s name is on the order of service with those of three other New Hinksey men: James Lynes, John Rowley, and Fred Taylor. All four are named on the school's war memorial.

John’s widow Ethel had a brother, Reg Collins, who was killed in 1940 in the sinking of HMS Jervis Bay and who is named on both the memorial in St John the Evangelist Church in New Hinksey, and on the memorial in St Matthew's Church in Grandpont. Reg and Ethels’ sister Edna also lost her husband during the war: Bernard Jones served with the Royal Artillery and died as a prisoner of war in Japan in November 1942, a month after John was killed. Bernard is commemorated on the Second World War memorial in the church of St Thomas the Martyr in Oxford.

In 1945 Ethel married Silverius N Sauer, an American soldier. She and Julia emigrated to the USA the following year. Their departure address in England was 4 Green Place, New Hinksey. They settled in Allenton, West Bend, Wisconsin, and Ethel and Silverius had four children. Ethel died on 24 March 1964, aged 47.

John’s daughter Julia married Timothy Leader in 1961 and became a naturalised US citizen in 1976. She died in 2022.

Research by Siobhan Lancaster; with thanks to Lesley Dewhurst.

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