Failed to Return

P/O P C Siddall and Crew

P/O P C Siddall and crew were posted to 550 Sqdn from No. 1 L.F.S on 12 August 1944:

Lancaster NF962 was flown by the P/O P C Siddall crew (with P/O Siddall P2 to W/Cmdr Sisley, Commanding Officer 550 Squadron) when it was lost on a daylight operation on 31 August 1944 against a flying bomb site at Agenville. All of the crew, including W/Cmdr Sisley, were killed and were buried in Abbeville Cemetery.

W/Cdr A F M Sisley DFC (P) KIA

W/Cmdr Sisley was an Australian from Sydney who had joined the RAF in the mid-thirties. Sadly he had a short tenure as Squadron CO. He was the third Squadron CO, and he had followed the previous CO, W/Cmdr Connolly, who had also been killed on operations just the previous month after a similarly short period as CO when LL837 was lost on operations to Revigny on 14 July 1944.

The entry on the 550 Squadron Roll of Honour is available here.

Other information about the flight and the target available here.

Arthur Stuart Parsons 434266
Cairns Post (Qld. : 1909 - 1954), Wednesday 25 April 1945, page 3
Image kindly made available by researcher at IBCC

Abbeville Communal Cemetery

As noted above all of the crew are buried in Abbeville Communal Cemetery.

Pictures kindly provided of James Smith from a visit to the CWGC, Abbeville. A couple of individual pics of the gravestones of W/Cmdr Sisley and Sgt Hamilton's headstones together with a picture of all eight gravestones.

James remarks that as a wee boy he spent his summer holidays in 1944 at his Aunt's who lived next door to Sgt/Mrs Hamilton and their two daughters. He has a picture of himself wearing Sgt Hamilton's AG brevet given to him a few weeks before his ill-fated mission.

Row 8B, Connolly, Hamilton, Sgt R MacLeod

Row 8B (from the other side)

Sgt T Hamilton

W/Cmdr A F M Sisley