Flight Sergeant Peter Purves

Flight Sergeant  Peter Purves, Flight Engineer, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He died on Service in a flying accident on 3rd June 1945 ,aged 20. He had been born in Eccles and was the son of  Jane Renton Brown and the stepson of John Brown of 74 High Street, Coldstream. and is buried in Birgham Kirkyard , Birgham, Coldstream. He is also on the Birgham War Memorial. He had been a keen member of the Air Training Corps before joining the R.A.F. in 1943. Before enlisting he had been employed as a plumber and electrician in Coldstream.  He was a Flight Engineer in a Halifax bomber which had just taken off from his Training Unit at R.A.F. Matching in Essex when it was involved in a mid-air collision with a Wellington bomber from 81 Operational Training Unit. Both aircraft crashed near Peterborough. The photograph shows the Coldstream detachment of the A.T.C. under the command of John Jamieson who was the Headmaster of Coldstream School. ( Seated on Mr. Jamieson’s right is the author’s Uncle Nichol Murray who went on to fly the B24 Liberator bomber with Coastal Command on anti submarine patrols over the Atlantic ).

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