William’s squadron flew the twin-engine medium Wellington Bomber. By September 1940 he had completed thirty-four operational sorties over Germany. Refusing to take up a ground posting he was posted to Tatoi, Greece where he was flying in support of Allied forces defending Greece against the Italians.

William was killed when his aircraft crashed at Danilovgrad, Yugoslavia, killing all on board, including forty-one year old American war correspondent Ralph Waldo Barnes, of the New York Herald Tribune travelling as an observer.

Barnes had been one of the journalists to interview Charles Lindbergh as he completed the first solo transatlantic flight in May 1927 and by 1939 was head of the London bureau: in 1940 he was on the continent. He was with German troops when they entered Dunkirk after the British evacuation and reported from Amsterdam and Berlin as German troops rolled across western Europe. Barnes arrived in Athens in November 1940 via a British warship, shortly after Italian troops moved into Greece.

On the evening of 17^th November Barnes drove over winding roads through the Blue Mountains of Greece to the airfield at Tatoi, north of Athens. From there he was to accompany an RAF crew set to bomb an Albanian port being used as a staging area by the Italians for its attacks on Greece.

Barnes climbed aboard Wellington bomber T2827 flown by William Bennett with four other crew members. They set a course for Durrës, a little over 300 miles away on the Adriatic coast. The weather along the coast was exceedingly bad that night, and William apparently never found the target. The bomber wandered beyond Durrës and over Yugoslavia, where the cloud cover became so thick that he tried to descend so as to determine his location.

Sometime between 03:00 hrs and 04:00 hrs on Monday 18^th November 1940 the fully laden Wellington flew into the side of the highest mountain peak called Velji Garač near Danilovgrad in what is now Montenegro. The ensuing explosion upon impact was so intense the local residents believed they were being bombed: the wreckage and its occupants were scattered over a very wide area. Michael was aged 22 when he was killed and is buried with his crew in Belgrade War Cemetery.

Ralph Barnes was the first US war correspondent to die covering the war. By the time the conflict ended nearly five years later, dozens more would share the same fate, as would still more journalists from numerous other countries.

Elder son of Mr & Mrs Harry Bennett, Wallasey, Cheshire.

A downloadable copy of William's story is available here.

See also the Commonwealth War Graves Commission permanent digital memorial, ‘Evermore: Stories of the fallen’ relating to:- P/Officer William Graham BENNETT