A DUTCH Second World War researcher is hoping Beacon readers can help him identify an RAF officer from Chepstow who was killed in action over Germany in 1944.

Teunis Schuurman from Vollenhove is trying to trace the family of Flt. Lt. Charles William Reeves DFC, a navigator who died on September 11th, 1944 aged 21 and is buried at Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Mr Schuurman has spent 12 years gathering information about 12 airmen who were killed in action near his hometown and are buried in the cemetery there.

The airmen - seven British, three Australian, one New Zealander and one Canadian - were from four different planes.

His research on them has already taken 38,000 hours, stretches to 3,500 pages and has involved contacting 675 foreign families!

One of the graves is that of Pilot Officer John (‘Jack’) Edward Rule from New Zealand, who died with four of his crew on 3rd January 1944. Two other crew members survived the incident.

Mr Schuurman has a photograph of Plt. Off. Rule and six crewmen taken in 1943, sitting on a 4,000lb high capacity ‘Cookie’ bomb - but he believes two of the names on the picture, are wrong.

“I know that the name ‘Ken Ball’ is definitely wrong. The other name, written in pencil, is ‘Charles Evans’ but I don’t think this is right either as that name has not come up in any of my research.

“I know that Pilot Officer Rule, however, had flown more than 20 missions with a navigator called Charles Reeves and I think the person in the photograph could be him.

“My goal is to find a portrait of Flt Lt Reeves which will solve the mystery of whether he is actually the person in the photograph referred to as ‘Charles Evans and I’m hoping some of your readers can help.”

Flt Lt Charles Reeves is known to have flown with 156 and 103 Squadrons.

He was the son of Frederick Reeves and Winifred Lilian Reeves née Snow, of Bulwark, and was married to Lillian Reeves née Smith, of Manchester.

He had a sister Hilda Reeves (born in 1924) and two brothers Frederick J. Reeves (born in 1927) and David E. Reeves (born in 1931) - all from the Chepstow area.

Charles Reeves himself was born in 1923 and married Lillian in late 1944 - not long before he was killed in action over Germany. 

Records of births marriages and deaths in the Chepstow district show that his brother Frederick J. Reeves married Sybil M Powell in the spring/summer of 1950.

It appears that they later moved to the Bristol area, as the birth of a daughter Annette E R Reeves, is recorded there in 1952.

Records from the Bristol district also show that Annette married a David W. Moore in 1983.

If anyone can help Mr Schuurman with his quest to identify Charles Reeves, email him at [email protected]