Funeral at Chester le Street.

Promising career cut short by air crash.

A detachment from the RAF Auxiliary Squadron at Usworth – in charge of Pilot Officer Young – provided a firing party and bearer party at the funeral at Chester-le-Street on Saturday of Pilot-Sergeant Henry Albert Donald, of No.10 Squadron Heavy Bombers, who was killed on Tuesday of last week when a plane he was flying at Dishforth Aerodrome crashed, and representatives from the No.10 Squadron also attended.

The late Pilot-Sergeant, who was the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. T.W. Donald, of 14 The Crescent, Chester-le-Street, joined the R.A.F. when he was sixteen years of age, gaining entry by competitive examination while a student at Chester-le-Street Secondary School.

After four years’ service as an aircraftman at various aerodromes in Britain he was transferred to Egypt, where he served for just over a year.

Returning to England he again served at various aerodromes as an aircraftman, but he quickly began to forge ahead and in less than two years reached the rank of pilot-sergeant, the youngest at Dishforth Aerodrome, and a brilliant future appeared to be in store for him.

In a recent flying test he had the honour of being the top of the twelve competitors, these including officers with greater experience than himself.

(The rest of the article describes the funeral itself.)

Henry Albert Donald is remembered in Chester-le-Street in C105.05 page 5, C105.38 and on C105.40

Although he is mentioned on several memorials, there is no CWGC entry for him as he died in May 1939 - before the Second World War started in September.