{"id":73544,"date":"2016-08-25T14:04:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T14:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=a4985d56fe4026bb0c0753129e959194"},"modified":"2016-08-25T14:04:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T14:04:36","slug":"news-story-final-plea-to-find-yorkshire-family-of-world-war-2-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=73544","title":{"rendered":"News story: Final plea to find Yorkshire family of World War 2 hero"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Sergeant (<abbr title=\"Sergeant\">Sgt<\/abbr>) David Allan Ashton was just 18 years old when his <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Bristol Blenheim aircraft went missing over France in May 1940. Today, the <abbr title=\"Ministry of Defence\">MOD<\/abbr>\u2019s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (<abbr title=\"Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre\">JCCC<\/abbr>), part of Defence Business Services, launches a final appeal to trace <abbr title=\"Sergeant\">Sgt<\/abbr> Ashton\u2019s family after his grave site was identified 70 years after he was killed in action.<\/p>\n<p>Royal Air Force (<abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr>) member <abbr title=\"Sergeant\">Sgt<\/abbr> Ashton was born in York, as were his parents David and Isobel Ashton. He was on board Bristol Blenheim N6210, part of 110 Squadron Royal Air Force, when it was lost while on a sortie over the Sedan area of France on 14 May 1940. The crew were later buried in Choloy War Cemetery, France as \u201cunknown\u201d British airmen.<\/p>\n<p>More recently the records have been re-examined and have revealed that one of the crew buried in Choloy held the rank of Pilot Officer whilst another had a cigarette lighter with the initials \u201cD.A\u201d engraved on it. The only aircraft missing during May 1940 whose crew included a Pilot Officer and someone with the initials \u201cD.A\u201d was Blenheim N6210, meaning these graves in Choloy must belong to this crew.<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Defence (<abbr title=\"Ministry of Defence\">MOD<\/abbr>) is now trying to track down any of David\u2019s surviving relatives so that they can be invited to attend a service of rededication of his grave in Choloy War Cemetery on 25 October.<\/p>\n<p>Louise Dorr, from the <abbr title=\"Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre\">JCCC<\/abbr> said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">David\u2019s records don\u2019t give us a great deal of information about him. From what we can make out, he seems to have had 2 older sisters (Evelyn and Hilda) and an older brother (Albert), plus a younger brother and sister (John and Iris). We believe that out of his siblings, John married and had children and we hope that some of his children and grandchildren may still be living in the Yorkshire area.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If you can help with tracing David\u2019s family, please call Louise on 01452 712612 extension 5465 or email her at: <a href=\"mailto:DBS-JCCCCommem4SO3@mod.uk\">DBS-JCCCCommem4SO3@mod.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JCCC have launched an appeal to trace Sergeant David Allan Ashton&#8217;s family after his grave site has been identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}