Crafton Dudley Wong

Crafton Dudley Wong was one of the several thousand volunteers who travelled from the Caribbean to serve in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He was the son of Charles Henry and Irene Catherine Wong of Kingston, Jamaica, and was about eighteen years old when he attested in April 1943.

He trained as an air bomber and navigator, qualifying and being promoted to sergeant in July 1944. Like many aircrew, he was still in the training pipeline at the start of 1945, posted to No. 10 Operational Training Unit, where crews flew worn but serviceable Vickers Wellingtons to prepare for front-line operations.

He never reached an operational squadron. On 4 January 1945, flying in Wellington X LP729, the aircraft suffered engine failure and crashed north of Church Eaton, a few miles south-west of Stafford. Wong was killed; he was 19 years old. He was buried far from home at Chester (Blacon) Cemetery, a burial ground used heavily for the training stations of north-west England and Wales. His headstone records that he was of Kingston, Jamaica, British West Indies — a reminder that Bomber Command’s losses were drawn from across the Commonwealth, and that many who served and died never flew an operation.