Flying Officer, RAF
Born: September 8th 1923
Died: February 19th 1945
Age at Death: 21
Killed in a plane crash in Italy on 19 February 1945.
Raymond (known as Ray) was born in Winchester on 8 September 1923, to Julius Manning and his wife Oriel (née Currie). During the war he flew the Westland Lysander army cooperation and liaison aircraft for 148 Special Duties (Special Operations Executive) Squadron in Italy, tasked with dropping off and collecting agents from territories occupied by the enemy. Ray was probably chosen for this role because he could speak German, Hungarian and Serbo-Croat, having spent his early years in Yugoslavia. He flew missions into Yugoslavia and France.
Ray met Diana Portman, known as Dipsy, while both were serving in Italy – Diana was also in the Special Operations Executive. They married in Florence on 4 February 1945. Fifteen days later the couple were returning from their honeymoon in a Lockheed Hudson bound for Capodichino, near Naples. The aircraft’s port engine failed completely, and the plane crashed, killing all on board. Ray and Dipsy are buried at the Florence War Cemetery. Their epitaph, chosen by Dipsy’s SOE comrade Sue Ryder, later a famous charity worker, reads:
They were lovely & pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not divided.