101 - Rita Burns, Cooranbong, NSW, Australia - Headstones of Centenarians on Waymarking.com

The black marble plaque has gilded writing, and reads:

 RITA KATHLEEN BURNS
	(nee Lampard)
	Born 2.12.1911
 Died Peacefully 12.1.2013, Aged 101

Widow of Clifford Drewer (d. 1944 WW2)
     and Eric Burns (d. 1981)
     Loved Mother and Gran of
Robert Drewer & Peter Drewer (d. 2008)
	and their Families
	 ASLEEP IN JESUS

So, with a little digging, I realised that Rita's older son taught me Chemistry and Physics as part of my Nursing Degree at Avondale College, just 'up the road' from the cemetery, in 1992-5. Dr 'Bob' Drewer ended up teaching at Avondale College for 42 years before retiring.

While Robert's father, Rita's first husband, Clifford Harris Drewer, was possibly born in ~1908. He was a Flight Lieutenant (417818), from the RAAF, flying with the Royal Air Force during World War Two. At age 34 years, he was a Bomb Aimer in a Lancaster bomber that was on a mission on the night of 23/24 June 1944 to bomb a Flying Bomb site at Courbonne, France. The Lancaster bomber, serial number ND-590 in ATTD 7 Squadron RAF, with a flight crew of seven, took off from RAF Oakington at 0002 hours just after midnight, the morning of 24 June, 1944 and nothing was heard from the aircraft (Radio call sign: MG-B) after take off and it did not return to base.

"Post war enquiries by a Missing Research & Enquiry Unit established that the aircraft crashed at approx 1am on 24 June 1944 in a field near Warhem, and all the crew were killed. They are buried in the Warhem Communal Cemetery, Locality Nord, France. The village of Warhem is 12kms south east of Dunkirk and about 5kms east of Bergues." 347 page PDF document [page 26/347]

Rita later married Eric Burns, who pre-deceased her in 1981.

Visited: 1321, Thursday, 12 January, 2017

Location of Headstone: Lawn Cemetery

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