Sergeant, RAFVR
Born: August 22nd 1924
Died: 23rd September 1944
Age at Death: 20
Roger was born on 22 August 1924 to George Ward, a clerk at the Bank of England, and his wife Constance (née Brockwell), of Streatham in London. At the College he was in the water polo and swimming teams.
Roger joined the RAF straight after school, and was assigned to 166 Squadron, based at Kirmington in Lincolnshire, flying Lancaster bombers over Germany. On 23 September 1944 the squadron was sent on one such mission, but his plane never returned. There are competing theories as to where the plane was lost; one is that it is the aircraft that came down that night over the Dutch town of Zelhem, en route to Germany.
Ward is commemorated at the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial to air force personnel with no known grave. Intriguingly, however, it is just possible that he does have a burial place: the Dutch created a grave in Zelhem Cemetery to an unknown airman, where rest the remains of one or more of the crew in the plane that was downed on that date.