On the Lee on Solent Memorial is the name of Sub-Lieutenant (A) John Bertram Ganner, serving on H.M.S. Victorious with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve who died 12/07/1941.

Rev. David Youngson has provided the following:

Sub-Lieutenant John Bertram GANNER
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
HMS Victorious

John Ganner was killed in an air crash during working up exercises of the Fleet Air Arm 809 squadron off the Norwegian coast. He died on the 12th July 1941 and is remembered on the Lee-on-Solent Memorial, Hampshire, Bay 2, Panel 6.

HMS Victorious was an illustrious class aircraft carrier built by Vickers Armstrong, Newcastle upon Tyne and commissioned on the 14th May 1941. The ship took part in the attack on the German battleship Bismarck on the 27th May 1941.

Ade Maddock writes in 2026:-
So my Grandad had two brothers, John (who was known as Bert due to their father also being John) and Lloyd, my Grandad Ray, joined the army, Lloyd joined the RAF and Bert became a Naval volunteer.

Unfortunately Bert passed in a flying accident shortly after HMS Victorious (which he was serving on as a naval aviator) was involved in the sinking of the Bismarck, the plane he was piloting engine caught fire and they crashed at sea, Leading Airman L. Powell also lost his life in the crash.

Lloyd survived the war and passed in 1998, my Grandad was injured at war fighting a German SS panzer division just after the Battle of Cassino and that was the end of his campaign, although he stayed enlisted and left the army in 1963 after rising to the rank of Regimental Sargent Major with the Coldstream guards, he later passed in the year 2000.

John Bertram Ganner is remembered at Billingham on B139.01, at Stockton in S138.19 and on S138.52 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.