In Darlington West Cemetery is the Commonwealth War Grave of:

651827  Aircraftman 1st Cl.
A. Quincey
Royal Air Force
9th May 1940  age 21

Also his father
Herbert Henry Quincey
died 18th April 1921, age 40.

And in memory
of his brother
L/Cpl. Richard Quincey, R.E.
drowned 17th June 1943, age 27.

The son of Herbert Quincey, and of Minnie Quincey, of Darlington, Co. Durham.

Born in Darlington on 6th October 1918, Albert was the youngest of the children of Herbert and Minnie (nee Crawford) Quincey, they were Ada (b.1912), Richard (b.1916), Albert and John (b.1920).  The older children Alice Maud (b.1902), Arthur (b.1903), Herbert (b.1905) and Ernest (b.1907) were from Herbert’s first marriage to Minnie’s sister, Ada, who had died in 1908.

By 1921, just after their father had died, Minnie, Ada and the six boys were living at 5 Robinsons Yard, Tubwell Row, Darlington.

Albert enlisted with the Royal Air Force just after the outbreak of war and in May 1940 was based at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire with 12 OTU.

On 9th May 1940 Albert and some fellow cadets were swimming in the River Thames between Benson and Shillingford when he got into difficulties.  The Inquest report stated that he went under, and on coming to the surface, was seized by his companion. He struggled, however, and his companion becoming exhausted, had to let go and Quincey sank. Other men hurried to the spot and dived in fully dressed. Later a medical officer arrived and he too, fully dressed, dived in and recovered the body from the mud at the bottom of the river. Artificial respiration was unsuccessful. A verdict of accidental drowning was returned.

Albert’s father Herbert Henry was a POW in WW1, and died in 1921, while his older brother Richard also drowned in the sinking of the SS Yoma in June 1943.

Albert Quincey is remembered at Darlington on D40.035 and D40.043 and in a RAF Book of Remembrance page 91.