The [Lockheed Hudson] squadron was based at RAF Thornaby, Yorkshire flying in the costal reconnaissance and anti-shipping role.

In February 1940, the German tanker ‘Altmark’ was returning to Germany with 299 captured British sailors on board. These were POW’s who had been picked up from ships sunk by the pocket battleship ‘Admiral Graf Spee’. On its way from the southern Atlantic to Germany, the Altmark passed through Norwegian waters [still a neutral country at the time] and was then spotted by a British aircraft, one of whose pilots was Henry Thwaite. The British POWs onboard the tanker were subsequently rescued by the Royal Navy under the direct orders of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

Henry subsequently lost his life along with his crew on another reconnaissance mission over the north coast of Denmark when his aircraft failed to return on Monday 15^th April 1940. He was 23 years of age and is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, Englefield Green, Surrey.

Husband of Mary Thwaite: elder son of Alwyn Howarth Thwaite & Henrietta Thwaite of Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

A downloadable copy of this story is available here.

See also the Commonwealth War Graves Commission permanent digital memorial, ‘Evermore: Stories of the fallen’ relating to:- F/Officer Henry Outram THWAITE