James Kee

JAMES KEE Fg.Off. RAF   d. 28 October 1941  aged 24    42713

 

Robert Kee was Vicar of St.John's, Mosley Common, from 1936 to 1962, and he officiated at several events at St.Mark's during the war years. JAMES KEE was his only son and was born to Janet on 21 July 1917 in Belfast, Co. Antrim, Ireland.  After school, he went to Cambridge University where he was admitted as Pensioner at Trinity College on 1 October. There he gained his B.A. Hons. in 1939.

 

Robert (born 1885) died in 1962 and his wife Janet died in 1968. Both are buried in the graveyard at St. Mark's, together with their son, James, in whose memory a special Commonwealth Graves headstone stands before the family monument.

 

On 18 September 1939, he received his commission into the RAF (General Duties Branch) and joined 101 Squadron on a short service commission as a pilot. On 20 April 1941, he was promoted to Flying Officer. 101 sqn., (originally disbanded in 1919), was reformed in 1938 at RAF Bircham Newton (Norfolk) as a bomber squadron, flying the Bristol Blenheim. In 1941, the squadron was equipped with the Vickers Wellington, and the following year with the Avro Lancaste219 Squadron was reformed at RAF Catterick in October 1939 and soon became a night fighter unit when it became fully operational. By October 1940, it relocated to RAF Redhill (Surrey), and from there to RAF Tangmere, and converted to the Bristol Beaufighter. By this time James Kee had been redeployed to the squadron and the Beaufighter, which was used initially as a night fighter and in a ground attack role. It had a crew of two - pilot, and a navigator/radio operator.On 28 October 1941, James Kee and T. G. F. Dixon took off in their Beaufighter, possibly from Tangmere, on a dusk patrol. Soon after take-off, the plane crashed about four miles west of Merston (Sussex) in the evening. Both F/O J. Kee and Sgt. T.G.F. Dixon were killed.

Researched and written by Paul R Speakman