Albert Golding

Albert Golding was born on 31 July 1911 in Hawkshaw, Lancashire, and was educated at King William’s College before entering the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell in 1928 as a career officer — a background that placed him among a small cohort of peacetime professionals who would carry the early burden of Bomber Command’s night offensive. He progressed steadily through the pre-war ranks, reaching Flight Lieutenant by 1936 and Squadron Leader at the outbreak of war in April 1939, by which time the RAF had re-equipped many of its medium-bomber units with the Vickers Wellington. By early 1941 he held command of a flight in No. 37 Squadron, a Wellington unit, and his performance on operations over Germany was recognised with the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross, gazetted in January 1941, followed by a Bar to the DFC later that year. He was promoted to Wing Commander on 1 June 1941 and subsequently assumed command of No. 12 Squadron at RAF Binbrook, Lincolnshire, leading the unit through the intensifying night offensive against the industrial Ruhr and Reich targets. On the night of 26 March 1942, aged thirty, he was killed when Wellington W5372 was shot down by a night-fighter and crashed near Enkhuizen in the Netherlands during a raid on Essen; he left a wife, Kathleen Rylance Golding of Hawkshaw, and two children, Diana and John. He is buried at Bergen General Cemetery, Noord-Holland, Netherlands, Plot 1, Row D, Grave 15.