1889 June Quarter birth-

Name: Casson, Stanley

District: Brentford (Volume & Page: 3a & 124 )

1944 June Quarter death registration-

Name: Casson, S. (Male)---Age: - (i.e.-unknown)

District: St. Austell (Volume & Page: 5c & 112)

RAF 525 Squadron's Vickers Warwick III (#BV 247) aircraft, with fourteen air crew members and passengers aboard, had taken off from RAF Station St. Mawgan, Newquay, Cornwall, on a scheduled service flight (England to Algiers Maison Blance airport, via Gibraltar), when it exploded in mid-air and crashed into Watergate Bay near Newquay Bay. All 14 on board the aircraft perished in the crash. The Warwick was thought to be carrying several top-secret agents, military advisers, linguists and top-secret documents, as well as thousands of £100 bills and possibly boxes of gold (thought to be for use in helping to finance European underground groups).

The passengers included two French officers enroute to meet with General Charles DeGaulle in Cairo; two Polish couriers enroute to Warsaw; one senior staff officer enroute to Cairo; one Greek expert enroute to Greece; one Hungarian/Canadian enroute to Hungary on an S. O. E. mission; three S. O. E. officers; and one Russian-speaking MI6 officer enroute to Yugoslavia to meet with Tito partisans.

The 525 Squadron members who perished in this accident were:

RCAF Flying Officer Harold Calven AUSTEN,

RAFVR Flying Officer Albert George Tracey GARDINER,

RCAF Flying Officer Arthur Douglas GAVEL,

RAF Pilot Officer George William LAMB,

RAFVR Flying Officer Noel Spencer NICKLIN,

RAFVR Flight Sergeant Michael Kingston ROWE and

RAF Squadron Leader William Godfrey TILEY.

The passengers were:-

Lieutenant Colonel Ivor Watkins BIRTS,

RAF Air Commodore George Lionel Seymour DAWSON-DAMER, Viscount CARLOW,

Lieutenant Colonel Stanley CASSON,

Kapitan Edmund GÓJSKI,

Kapral Józef KRÓL,

Lieutenant Stephen MAITLAND (using the alias, Lieutenant Stephen MATE)

(He is thrice listed on the CWGC: Steve Mate (Civilian), Stephen Mate (General List) and Stephen Maitland [Alias]),

Major Thomas Percival WARD and

Roger A. A. BAUDOIN/BAUDOUIN.

Art scholar and distinguished Army officer, Stanley Casson read Classical Archaeology at Lincoln College and St. John's College, Oxford, and was admitted to the British School at Athens. During the First World War he enlisted in the East Lancashire Regiment, and was wounded in Flanders in 1915. His war poetry is now in the War Poetry Collection at Napier University in Edinburgh. He subsequently served on the General Staff in Greece, Constantinople and Turkestan, and was mentioned in despatches.

-After demobilisation in 1919 Casson returned to academia, becoming Assistant Director of the British School at Athens, Fellow of New College, Oxford, and Lecturer in Classical Archaeology. He directed British Academy excavations in Constantinople in the late Twenties. During this period he published thirteen books of archaeology, art history, philosophy and autobiography.

-At the outbreak of the Second World War he resumed his Army career, first in Holland and later returning to Greece as Lieutenant Colonel in the Intelligence Corps, where he was a liaison officer until his death, at age 58 years, in a plane crash in 1944 at sea near Newquay, Cornwall.

Military Service:-

Rank: Lieutenant Colonel

Service No: 98094

Age: 54

Service: Intelligence Corps

Unit: SOE Liaison Officer, Greece [SOE=Special Operations Executive]

Honours: Mentioned in Despatches in the 1914-18 War.

Son of William Augustus and Kate Elizabeth (née Peake) Casson; husband of Nora Elizabeth Joan (née Ruddle) Casson of Kensington, London, England.

Fellow of New College, (Oxford). Reader in Classical Archaeology.

He is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.