Rev. David Youngson has submitted the following:
O'Brien John Fawell
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
405 Squadron
(Royal Canadian Air Force)
The son of John and Isabella Harriet O'Brien of Norton, Stockton-on-Tees. An Observer he died on the 1st August 1942 aged 20. He is buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, Grave Reference 28.D.16.
405 Squadron at the time of his death was part of Bomber Command based RAF Topcliffe, North Yorkshire flying Vickers Wellington Mark II.
Reichswald Forest War Cemetery was created after the Second World War when burials were brought in from all over western Germany and is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the country. Some of the airmen buried in the cemetery lost their lives in supporting the advance into Germany, but most died earlier in the war in the intensive air attacks over Germany. Their graves were brought in from cemeteries and isolated sites in the surrounding area. The Cemetery contains 7,594 casualties of the Second World War. The cemetery was designed by Philip Hepworth.
John Fawell O'Brien is remembered in Stockton on S138.19b
