Eric Franklyn Evans – Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 12 Squadron

Flight Sergeant Eric Franklyn Evans – Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 12 Squadron

Early Life and Family Background

Eric Franklyn Evans was born in 1923 in Swansea, the son of Thomas Stuart Evans and Doris Marguerite Walker, who had married in 1920 at Swansea. Records relating to Eric’s early life are limited, and much of his childhood remains unrecorded, a circumstance not uncommon for families of the inter‑war years.

Service with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Eric enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, where he trained for operational service with No. 12 Squadron, a Lancaster unit based at RAF Wickenby, Lincolnshire. By 1944 the squadron was heavily engaged in Bomber Command’s strategic campaign against German naval bases, industrial centres, and port facilities. As a member of a Lancaster crew, Eric served in one of the most demanding and dangerous roles of the air war.

Lancaster I

Final Operation: 27 August 1944

On 27 August 1944, Flight Sergeant Evans was aboard an Avro Lancaster I during a major night raid on Kiel, a heavily defended naval port and shipbuilding centre on the Baltic coast. The operation formed part of the continuing effort to disrupt German naval operations and submarine construction. During the raid, the Lancaster carrying Eric failed to return and was lost without trace. No wreckage or remains were ever recovered, and the circumstances of the aircraft’s loss remain unknown.

Eric Franklyn Evans
Runnymede Memorial, Egham, Surrey credit - findagrave

The Crew of the Lancaster

Eric was lost alongside his fellow airmen — Flying Officer Herbert Thomas George Atkinson, Flying Officer Sidney Arthur Clack, Flight Sergeant Douglas Emmott, Flying Officer Brian Stewart Leuty, Sergeant David George Northcott, Sergeant William Edward Pullen, and Sergeant Joseph Ronald Stone. With no known graves, all are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, which honours those of the Commonwealth air forces who were lost without trace during the Second World War.