Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 190

W ORLD W AR II

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name CHRISTOPHER RENDEL HEBELER (Plt Off)

Lef SES 1932

Arrive SES 1930

Roll Number 2572 Died 12:04:1940

Set / House E

Where UNKNOWN Serving with 27 SQD, BOMBER CMD, R.A.F.V.R.

Age 25

Buried No Known Grave Remembered The Runnymede Memorial and The St. Edward’s School WW2 Memorial

Born 1915, the elder of two SES brothers, he was only at the School a short time. On leaving he was in the Vc Form. For four years he was an apprentice in the LNER workshops, during which time he took out a civil flying ‘A’ licence and spent a year with Imperial Airways Engine Servicing Hangars at Croydon. He achieved a commission with the R.A.F. in 1938. When war broke out he immediately joined the R.A.F. and trained as a Pilot Officer with 77 Squadron Bomber Command flying Whitley Bombers. In 1940 he was Mentioned in Despatches, now with 27 Squadron Bomber Command, flying long-distance flights over Germany and to Vienna and night patrols over Sylt. He was lost without trace over the North Sea in April 1940, taking off from Driffield and after attacking German shipping in the Norwegian Fiords in a Whitley Bomber was never heard of again. ‘Ditched in the North Sea, 60 miles off Wick, due to engine failure, returning from an anti-shipping recce to the Skagerrak and Kattegat’ (Official Squadron Diary).