Sgt. John Charles Warburton
Royal Air Force 235 Squadron
from:Hamble
(d.17th January 1943)
My uncle, Jack Warburton, enlisted in October 1940. He died on the 17th of January 1943 with Navigator/Observer Edward Ewen (Teddy) Sillitoe near Kilkhampton, Cornwall. Crashed a Beaufighter in bad weather at Stowe Barton farm, trying to return to RAF Station Chivenor.
His death and burial at Heanton Punchardon Cemetery in North Devon brought my family to Braunton from the Southampton area, where my grandfather was involved in the design and building of the Spitfire. While in north Devon they both worked for Atlantic Coast Airlines, my grandfather was Chief Engineer under the CRO scheme at various locations in Braunton, and in hangars at Chivenor. My mother met and married my father there, an American soldier training for the D-Day invasion.
