Henry William Little was born in Oakley, Chinnor, the son of George Little, a farm labourer and Emma Little (nee Tolley), in the summer of 1913. He entered Lord Williams’s Grammar School in 1924 as a free place scholar and left in 1929 with a 3rd class honours school certificate.
Henry was living in Watlington, when, in September 1939, at the start of the WW2, he enlisted with the Royal Air Force. He married Margaret Isabel Patman at Dewsbury in Yorkshire in early 1941, before embarking on the armed merchant cruiser HMS Ranpura to Halifax, Nova Scotia in August 1941, from where he travelled to the US Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, for aircrew training.
After returning to England he was posted to 70 Squadron at RAF Kabrit in Egypt. On the night of 22/23 March 1943, Sergeant Little was navigator in Vickers Wellington Mk III (DF 698), being flown by Fg Off Arthur Bebbington MM. The aircraft took off shortly after 21:00 hours and nothing further was heard of them. After six months the crew were officially posted as missing, killed in action.
1027322 Sergeant Henry William Little, Royal Air Force VR, has no known grave, he and the crew are commemorated on the Alamein Memorial in Egypt. He is remembered in Thame on Lord Williams’s School honour board. He is also remembered on the war memorials at Chapel en Frith, Derbyshire and Watlington, Oxon.
The Thame Remembers Cross was delivered to Alamein Memorial, Alamein, Egypt on 19th February 2018 by David Bretherton (Thame Remembers)