Jack Anderson was born on the 7th of September 1922 in Bradford. He was the youngest of 7 children. An older brother, John William Anderson, died at the age of 1 in 1913. His parents were Ernest Sykes Anderson and Alice Willis. They married in 1906 in Bradford. His father was a bricklayer, and he died in 1932, when Jack was only 10 years old.
On the 1939 Register, Jack lived with his widowed mother and his sister Ivy at 1 Napier Road, Bradford. Jack is employed in the mill industry. His father, Ernest, served in the First World War. His attestation papers in 1915 say he was 31 years old and married with four children. He was five feet 3 inches tall. The family was living at 1 Napier Road in 1915. He was with the Machine Gun Corps. Comprehensive records of his dad’s war service survive. He experienced Trench Fever, for which he was hospitilised for several weeks. He states that he had never been ill before and now is having daily headaches and a temperature. In 1921, he had secured work as a bricklayer with Bradford Corporation.
Jack attended Hanson School, Bradford, from September 1933 to December 1938. Harry Joint also attended Hanson School on the same dates and was also killed on the Berlin raid, on the same day. Harrys service number is 1522494, he was also 21 years old.
'Missing Flyer'. 10th January 1944. The Yorkshire Observer.
'Mrs A Anderson of 49 Ederoyd Avenue, Stanningley, has been officially notified that her Son, Flight Sergeant Jack Anderson RAFVR, is missing after an operational flight. Aged 21, he is an old boy of Hanson High School and was more formally employed by Moss and Laurence, Union Street, Bradford.
Air Gunner Jack Anderson was on an aircraft that left Grandsen Lodge airfield in Cambridgeshire. The crew consisted of 7 men, 4 British and 3 Canadian. It is understood that it crashed at Wahrenhotz, 15 miles North West of Wolfsburg, Germany. The men were on a raid to Berlin. All 7 men died in the crash.'
The 405 Squadron was a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Squadron, based in Britain and under RAF operational command. It was the first of many Canadian heavy bomber squadrons that would eventually equip all of the No. 6 Group of Bomber Command.
Jack is commemorated at Hanover War Cemetery, Lower Saxony, Germany.
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