Personnel Index - Detail
Following basic training in Australia, W/O Stibbard left Sydney for aircrew training in Canada in December 1942.
He arrived in the UK on the 1st July 1943 and following additional training he was posted to 49Sqn on the 27th June 1944. Tragically, only about 10 days later he was killed.
7/8 July, 1944; ST LUE-D'ESSERENT (CRIEL):
5 Group paid a second visit to the V1 storage dump at St Leu on the 7th. A slightly smaller force of 208 Lancasters led by Pathfinder Mosquitoes, accurately bombed the tunnels in which the flying bombs were stored. But the cost in men and aircraft was to be high; 29 Lancasters and 2 Mosquitoes were lost as German night-fighters again took their toll.
The second crew reported missing was that piloted by F/O Cyril Baker (LL976); again there were no survivors. This crew lie at rest together in Marissel Cemetery, Oise, France.
Lancaster LL976 (EA-A)
F/O C. Baker Pilot (Killed)
Sgt J.M. Moss F/E (Killed)
W/O J.H. Stibbard RAAF NAV (Killed)
Sgt W. Higgins W/OP (Killed)
Sgt E.W. Everett A/G (Killed)
F/S H.H. Hewitt A/B (Killed)
Sgt R.E. Nineham A/G (Killed)
Crew on their 4th operation.
W/O Stibbard is reported missing.
The very poignant list of effects.....this is what you leave behind.
Confirmation of W/O Stibbard's identity.
Research by Dom Howard.
This crew is remembered on a memorial in Beauvoir en Lyons.