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Lieutenant Albert Neave Westlake MC (4th Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment, attached to 27th S

Christina Drummond

Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1918, Lieutenant Albert Neave Westlake MC (pictured - 4th Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment, attached to 27th Squadron, Royal Flying Corps) and Second Lieutenant Keith Penicuik Ewart (27th Squadron, Royal Flying Corps) were listed as missing in action but later discovered to have been killed.

They had been flying over Denain, west of Valenciennes in France, when their aircraft, a Machine B.2074 de Haviland 4, crashed. The Red Cross issued a statement that the aircraft had been found, and that according to a doctor who attended the crash, death had occurred immediately on impact. Personal items were collected including identification tags, a watch, Lieutenant Westlake’s wallet and tobacco bag. Both Lieutenant Westlake and Second Lieutenant Ewart were buried in the Niergnies Communal Cemetery, 6 km south-south-east of Cambrai in the Department of the Nord, France.

Keith, from Ottawa in Canada, had just turned 25 on Boxing Day.

Albert, from Wareham in Dorset, was 24 years old. Before the outbreak of war he had attended New College, Oxford, and his is one of 268 names on a Great War memorial tablet in the college chapel.

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