Peter David Adams

Peter David Adams was a Royal Air Force sergeant and aircrew member of No. 144 Squadron, a Hampden unit operating from RAF Hemswell. The database records him with the Distinguished Flying Medal, and the London Gazette notice shows that his service had already been formally recognised before his death. No. 144 Squadron was one of the Hampden squadrons carrying Bomber Command’s early-war offensive deep into Germany with aircraft that were already demanding to fly and vulnerable to weather, fighters and navigation hazards.

On 1 November 1940 Adams flew in Hampden I X3047 on a bombing mission to Berlin. Aviation Safety Network records the aircraft as having taken off from Hemswell and then vanished without trace with all four crew members: Pilot Officer Gilbert Morgan, Sergeant Peter Adams, Sergeant Edwin Bushell and Sergeant Donald Jenner. Adams has no known grave and is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. His loss belongs to the period when Bomber Command’s crews were learning the cost of long-range night operations.