Flight Sergeant, RAF
Born: 1 March 1913
Died: 5 March 1944
Age at Death: 31
Killed on active service, 5 March 1944
House Prefect 1931
2nd XV 1930-31
Boxing VIII 1928-1931
Father – G. O. Ackerman, tobacco merchant in China
c/o Mrs Rowe 20 Premier Parade, Edgeware, Middlesex
Oscar Ackerman was born in Shanghai on 1 March 1913, the son of Gilbert Ackerman and his wife Amelia (née Novak), both from Wales. Gilbert was an accountant for the British American Tobacco Company. Tragically, Amelia died giving birth to Oscar and his twin sister Emilie. At the College he was a member of the Boxing VIII and a House Prefect, before following his father into the British American Tobacco Company and being posted to a factory in Hankou, a city on the River Yangtze.
During the war Ackerman was sent for RAF basic training to Blackpool, where he met and married his landlady’s daughter, Barbara-Jean. In 1941 he was posted to Egypt, where he flew Wellington bombers. His crew undertook night raids over the Western Desert, targeting Panzer divisions and ports such as Benghazi to weaken Rommel’s supply lines.
By July 1942, Ackerman had completed 30 operational missions – the quota for airmen before they were entitled to serve in a non-combat role for a period. As he stood on a warship in Alexandria waiting to depart, news came through of a major German offensive: the First Battle of El Alamein had begun. Ackerman was immediately recalled to Cairo and assigned to the crew of a Wellington in 104 Squadron. On their first mission, the aircraft was hit and caught fire. Ackerman and his crew bailed out, but he was the only survivor. Landing behind enemy lines, he spent several days in the desert without food or water before he was found by Allied Special Forces. For this adventure he was enrolled in the Caterpillar Club, an award created by the Irvin Parachute Company for airmen surviving escape by parachute from a disabled plane.
In 1943 Ackerman was posted to RAF Cark in Cumbria, and was responsible for flying missions to train new wireless operators and air gunners. In one of his regular letters to Barbara-Jean, Oscar wrote about a flight planned for the next day. He was hoping it would be cancelled due to a poor weather forecast, but the mission went ahead. In stormy weather with poor visibility, Oscar’s Anson collided with another training aircraft and ditched off the Mull of Galloway. This time there were no survivors. His son, also named Oscar George in memory of his father, was born six weeks later. The elder Oscar is buried in an Imperial War Graves Commission grave outside the old church in St Brides-super-Ely, Cardiff, where he had married just 16 months earlier.