John Iorwerth Palmer Morgan
John Morgan was 18 at the outbreak of war in 1939 and joined the Volunteer Reserve of the RAF. He was the son of Thomas Harold Morgan, the head teacher of the school in Llanishen village, and Frances Morgan (maiden name Palmer), also a school teacher, from Tongwynlais. John was born on 25th January 1921 when the family was resident at Mill House in Tongwynlais. John was a member of the Llanishen and Lisvane Parish Churches Scout Group in the early 1930s and went on to become a “Rover Scout”, which was what the more senior scouts were called in those days.
Sadly John’s mother died in 1928 and he had no other brothers or sisters. His father remarried in August 1929 though, to Irene Fielding, and a step-brother to John was subsequently born in 1932, called William. In 1939 they Morgan family were living at “Trosnant” in Ty Glas Road (now no.150, apparently).
During the war John was called into RAF Bomber Command and trained to be a navigator (also called an observer). By 1943 he was part of 77 Squadron flying missions in a Handley-Page Halifax bomber, like the one shown below: 
A mission in which John’s Halifax was damaged was reported in April 1943, as in this extract from Yorkshire aircraft accidents web-site:
Halifax JB852 damaged by flak, returned to Elvington airfield
On the night of 3rd / 4th April 1943 the crew of this aircraft were undertaking an operational flight to bomb Essen and took from Elvington at 16.53hrs. They bombed the target area at 18.000ft but did not observe their own bombing result. The aircraft was hit by flak while over the target but the crew were able to make a safe return to base and landed at Elvington at 00.37hrs. Twelve holes were found in the aircraft. The members of the crew were:
- Pilot - F/O Dennis Percival Puddephatt RAFVR.
- Flight Engineer - Sgt Melvin John Halls Brookes RAF of Plymouth.
- Navigator - Sgt John Iorwerth Palmer Morgan RAFVR, of Llanishen, Cardiff.
- Bomb Aimer - Sgt Lawrence William Bolton RAFVR.
- Wireless Operator - Sgt George Samuel Walton RAFVR, of Fulham, London.
- Air Gunner - Sgt Eric Fedi RCAF, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
- Air Gunner - Sgt Ronald Alfred Halestrap RAFVR, of Hertfordshire.
All of the above with the exception of Sgt Fedi were flying on a bombing mission to Bochum in Germany in Halifax JB892 on 13-14th May 1943. When returning to England the aircraft was shot down by a German night fighter over northern Holland. All are buried in Sleen General Cemetery in the Drenthe region of the Netherlands. The Commonwealth War Graves record for Sgt Morgan shows his headstone and personal details: 
Notice in local paper (from Media Wales), sourced by Ceri Stennett)
Annual Remembrance of Sergeant John Iorwerth Palmer Morgan and his fellow crew members
A service is held every April near Sleen in the Netherlands to commemorate the loss of the crew of Halifax JB892 by a group of local school children whose job is to look after a monument which is made partly of some of the plane’s wreckage. Representatives from Llanishen and Lisvane Scout Group visited the school (the Fountain School) in 2015 and attended the annual memorial service. An account of the Scout Group’s own commemorations in respect of John Morgan was provided and used in the programme of service that year, and read out on the day (translated into Dutch). That account was as follows:
The Story provided for the Annual Ceremony in Sleen, 2015
Every year the Llanishen and Lisvane Scout Group commemorates three of its former members who were killed in action during the Second World War. The three were members of the Group as boys during the 1930s and they later volunteered to join the Royal Air Force after the war began. They remained adult members of our Group as Rover Scouts.The annual commemoration takes place on the UK’s Remembrance Sunday, which is the Sunday closest to Armistice Day (11 November). It begins with a parade into the centre of Llanishen village. The group, aged from 6 years old upwards, (Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers) walk from their club headquarters (Livsey Hall) to the local parish church of St Isan, carrying their flags as they go. They then take part in the remembrance service held at the church. Inside the church there is a special memorial plaque and window in honour of the three former Scouts who died:
During the service of remembrance, representatives of the Scout Group lay a wreath of poppies next to the memorial plaque and window. The national anthems of the United Kingdom and also that of Wales are then sung. [All three were Welsh as well as British and John Morgan’s second name, Iorwerth, is a Welsh language name, which means “Handsome Lord” in English.]
It is recorded on the plaque in the church that Sergeant Morgan was killed on 14 May 1943 and is buried in Sleen, Holland. But, until recently, our current members did not have any more detail than that. During 2014, some members of the group tried to find some more information about the three Rover Scouts who had died.
Following a number of investigations we discovered some information about the Halifax bomber in which Sgt Morgan was flying the night he was killed. We then discovered a news report (in Dutch) about a remembrance ceremony carried out by a group of school children at the site where his aeroplane was shot down. How fascinating! This then led us to the Fountain School in Sleen from which we have learned about the memorial maintained by the children and their annual ceremony, which includes special music and speeches.
We decided to contact the school as we felt it was important that the two groups of people, the children in particular, should know that the memory of Sgt Morgan was being kept alive every year in two completely different places. Also, in both the annual events, it is the youngest people in the local community who carry out the remembrance, ensuring it continues to be passed on from generation to generation.
We also think it strengthens the importance of remembering those who died and makes it even more worthwhile. We can be assured that the Llanishen and Lisvane Scout Group and the Fountain School in Sleen will both continue to remember Sgt Morgan and his two groups of brave young friends: those that died in his aeroplane with him and also his two boyhood pals from our Scout Group who met with the same tragic fate.
Scout Group parade in 2015 at St Isan’s Church, Llanishen
The monument to Sgt Morgan’s crashed Halifax, near Sleen in Holland:
A noticeboard near the monument contains the following information:
Returning from a bombing mission to the industrial town of Bochum (part of a flight of 446 bombers) the 4-engined English Halifax bomber (JB892 KN-E, from 77th Squadron) crashed during the night of 14 May 1943 at 2.30am near Sleen. The bomber was hit by a German fighter plane near Emmen, apparently flown by Hauptmann Herbert Lütje in a Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4 from Twente airfield.The memorial commemorates the 7 crew members, who were buried at the general cemetery in Sleen. A group of students of Zweeloo and Oosterhesselen established a monument using some of the plane’s wreckage in 1945. On 28 April 1988, this memorial was adopted under the Dutch government’s “Adopt a Monument” initiative by Year 7 of the Christian school “The Fountain” in Sleen.[The ‘Adopt a Monument’ project was launched in 1985 by the February ’41 Foundation (Stichting Februari ’41) and has grown ever since. Over 1,300 primary schools have adopted a monument dedicated to the Second World War. In the weeks prior to the national commemoration, special attention is paid to the relationship between the school and its monument and many schools launch educational projects of a historical and commemorative nature during this time.]
A YouTube video (“Halifax Going Down”) about the Sleen memorial and the crash site (in Dutch) is available here: http://youtu.be/meAGllY2xqc
Additional information is provided in English in the comments attached to the video. It mentions the annual memorial event organised by the local school. The snapshot below taken from the video shows where John’s name is inscribed:
Photo from the Scout Group’s visit to Sleen in 2015 to attend the annual ceremony:
More photos from the 2015 visit are available here:
The Germans normally took all the wreckage to stop it falling into the hands of the locals. So it was a risky – and very brave – thing that the students did. Their legacy continues though and is being preserved by the pupils of the school. A report of the 2019 ceremony is available here:
https://www.sleen.nu/nieuws/2019/bericht/11456/adoptie-vliegtuigmonument-op-25-april
Adoption aircraft monument on April 25 2019
April 20, 2019
As every year since 1988, in the context of the annual National Commemorations 1940-1945, the students of Year 8 of De Fontein from Sleen will transfer the adoption of the aircraft monument to their fellow students of Year 7.
The memorial, located in the forests near Noord-Sleen, recalls a crashed English bomber from the Second World War on the way back from an attack in Germany on 14 May 1943.
The adoption transfer will take place during a ceremony at the monument on Thursday, April 25 from 1 p.m. Elements of this ceremony include reading texts and poems made by pupils, a speech by one of the widows of a collector of debris from the aircraft, a speech by the alderman for education of the municipality of Coevorden, the laying of a wreath followed by blowing the "Last Post" and singing folk songs.
WAR MEMORIAL AT CARDIFF ROYAL INFIRMARY FOR MEMBERS OF THE WELSH NATIONAL SCHOOL OF MEDICINE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE WAR 1939-45.
John Morgan was also a medical student at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff. He is remembered alongside his fellow students who gave their lives during WW2 on a plaque and in a memorial window inside the chapel at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. The chapel is now open as a cafe and library called Capel i Bawb, part of Cardiff City Council library services, and the window is easily accessible on the ground floor inside.
