Reginald William John Green

Reginald William John Green was born in 1920 in Newbury, Berkshire, and was living in Finchley when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1938, before the outbreak of war. He served as an air gunner and wireless operator with No. 226 Squadron RAF, flying Fairey Battles during the desperate fighting of the Battle of France in May and June 1940, when the squadron conducted low-level bombing and strafing attacks on enemy convoys and military columns under intense ground fire. For his courage during those operations — particularly his gallantry in pressing attacks on enemy targets from low altitude with his rear gun — he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, gazetted on 25 June 1940. The squadron subsequently re-equipped with Bristol Blenheim IVs and moved to East Anglia to strike German-occupied ports and shipping targets along the Dutch and German coasts. On 4 July 1941, Green was flying as a crew member in Blenheim IV Z7291 — captained by Wing Commander Ralph George Hurst and accompanied by Flight Sergeant Thomas Clifford Davies DFM — when the aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire off the East Frisian island of Norderney and lost with all three men aboard. Flight Sergeant Green, service number 547790, was twenty-one years old; he is buried at Sage War Cemetery, Niedersachsen, Germany (Plot 5.B.10). Note: our database records this man’s decoration as the DFC, but every corroborating source — including the CWGC casualty record and the London Gazette entry of 25 June 1940 — confirms the award was the Distinguished Flying Medal.