Wing Commander Arthur Luxmoore

Sadly, LA Luxmoore's son Arthur died in a bombing raid in 1940.

He died a hero.

The following extracts are from the Lancing College War Memorial website.

This was the first bombing raid on a German town in the war.

Arthur Luxmoore and his crew took off from RAF Hemswell at about 11.30pm on the 11th of May 1940 . . .

At 12.30am they were at 6,000 feet and approaching the target area when they were hit by flak several times which caused severe damage to the starboard engine and the rudder controls. Wing Commander Luxmoore managed to steer the stricken bomber in a westerly direction, slowly losing height. An hour after being hit he ordered his crew to bail out and all three landed safely on the Allied side of the Maginot line. . .

Wing Commander Arthur Luxmoore stayed with the aircraft, steering it away from the village of Finnevaux. He died when it crashed and burst into flames.

One of his crew later wrote a letter of condolence to Arthur's mother. 'Thanks to the magnificent piloting of the Wing Commander we managed to reach friendly territory in Belgium, where he ordered us to abandon the aircraft by parachute. He of course was the last to leave. . . The rest of us owe our lives to him.'