Herbert John OXLEY (1919 - 1943)

Herbert John OXLEY and his twin brother William Reid OXLEY were born in New Zealand on the 5th of April 1919 to Australian-born father Hubert OXLEY and New Zealand-born mother Amelia Beatrice nee BENJAMIN.

In the New Zealand Ballot list for 1940, Herbert's occupation was  listed as process engraving and he lived in Richardson Road, Mount Roskill.

photo courtesy of the Mount Roskill People 1840 to 1940 Facebook page

Today is the anniversary eve of the death of Herbert who was killed in action in Europe on air operations on the 4th of April 1943. His last rank was Sergeant in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, 485 (NZ) Squadron, RAF, service number 412725.

Along with other Mount Roskill residents who gave their lives, Herbert is commemorated on the town's War Memorial.

'Mt Roskill War Memorial Park', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/mt-roskill-war-memorial-park, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 1-Dec-2015licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

Memorials for Herbert are at Runnymede Memorial, Surrey, United Kingdom, Auckland War Memorial Museum, World War 2 Hall of Memories and Mt Roskill War Memorial, War Memorial Park, 13 May Road, Mt Roskill, Auckland.

http://www.cwgc.org/

Huge thanks to cousins and fellow family history researchers Shelley Chambers and Denise McCracken.  

Herbert's grandmother was Emma MORGAN (1840-1903).

Maternal great-great-grand aunt of Shelley and myself and great-grand-aunt of Denise.

Shelley's sleuthing for this branch of our family paid off big time.

It is wonderful being part of such a team and to share the thrill of family history research with like-minded cousins.

Tribute page for our Servicemen