Alfred Lawrence Fowler

Alfred Lawrence Fowler was born on 21 June 1918 at Foxton, in the Manawatu region of New Zealand, the son of Alfred and Minnie Fowler of Levin, Wellington. Before the war he worked as an electrician and neon sign erector, and in June 1938 he applied for a Royal Air Force short service commission, arriving in Britain in February 1939 to begin his flying training at Yatesbury and then Sealand. By November 1939 he had joined No. 248 Squadron — a Coastal Command unit flying Bristol Blenheims on long-range patrol and anti-shipping sorties — and over the following year accumulated fifty-five operational flights. On 3 October 1940, during a North Sea patrol, he engaged a Dornier Do 215, sustaining wounds to his hand, face and eyes in the exchange before bringing his aircraft back to base; it was largely on account of this action and his sustained record of operational flying that he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, gazetted on 28 January 1941. Following postings to No. 119 Squadron at Bowmore in June 1941 and then to No. 413 (Royal Canadian Air Force) Squadron at Stranraer the following month, he was converting to the Consolidated Catalina flying boat when, on the night of 23 August 1941, Catalina AH556 crashed during a night-flying exercise on Loch Ryan. He was twenty-three years old, and is buried at Stranraer (Glebe) Cemetery, Wigtownshire, Section H, Class 1, Grave 157.