It was a while back when I did a blog post about 22 gentleman who currently reside in one of the local churches. Now to say that I’m a curious being might be the biggest understatement of the century but upon discovering that RAF Sergeant Robert Arthur Felix Turnbull was born in Mexico; it was inevitable that the flames of curiosity would only be further enflamed! How did this young man from Mexico end up so far away from home?
Robert was born 19th July 1920 in Puebla, Mexico to Robert Bernard Elliot Turnbull and Ethel Muriel Dowsing. He was thefirst son and eldest of three children. The other two children being Douglas Elliot Turnbull (1922) and Morwenna Turnbull.
A passenger list dated 10th May 1936 for the SS Queen Mary shows Robert and his brother Douglas arriving in Southampton in the July of that year. Their grandfather Felix Thomas Dowsing (newspaper editor) was listed as being their guardian and closest relative in England. Records didn’t show either of the two brothers living with their grandparents on the1939 register.
It’s not exactly clear as to when Robert joined the RAF but he was assigned to No. 7 Operational Unit (Costal Command) as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. The unit had been formed in April 1942.
2nd January 1943 likely began as any normal winter day could when Robert took off in his Vickers Wellington VIII. It would be the last time he was seen alive as the plane flew into a blizzard and then crashed. He was just 22 years old.
For Robert’s father, who had also served in the RAF with the rank of Lieutenant during World War One, it must have brought back memories of his younger brother 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Francis Javier Turnbull who also killed as a result of an aero accident on 9th February 1918 aged just 20 years old. The worry would only continue to linger as his one remaining son Douglas was serving as a flight lieutenant with 107 Operational Unit (Transport)
19th February 1945, like his elder brother two years earlier, Douglas boarded his plane for yet another flight. Little Douglas did know that it would be the last time he was seen alive. The plane crashed mid flight. He was 23 years old.
Despite being thousands of miles away these young men were still prepared to travel all that distance to aid the war effort. It feels appropriate to quote a verse from the poem my 1st cousin 4x Private R.S McGaffin wrote when he was serving in France:
Remember me to working mates
to chums of my school boy days
And just a word to all old friends
In my home so far away
