Sergeant John Walter William Overee RAFVR, was the son of Walter Alfred and Caroline Sarah Overee of 382 Rainham Road South, Dagenham, Essex.

 John was born in 1921 in the East End of London and had a younger brother, Reginald Alfred born in 1923. Reginald served as Wireless operator in 21 squadron of the South African Air Force mainly in Italy.

 John’s first entry in his log book is dated the 9^th of December 1943 and he appears to have met Charlie Taylor, the crews pilot, on the 26^th of March 1944 when they had a training flight in Wellington Bomber (JA 453). They trained together and with the rest of the crew until June 1944 when John went to Ingham Gunnery School (RAF Ingham served as a satellite for Hemswell) for a week on a course. They were reunited at Sandtoft (CTU) before moving to Hemswell(LFS) on the 15^th of July.

 Mr and Mrs Overee requested a list of all the crew members next of kin from the RAF and wrote to them all after John was posted as missing. They never gave up hope that he would return home one day.

 A post war investigation carried out by the Missing Research & Enquiry Services(No 4 Unit) concluded that body remains and parts of an aircraft had been found in Brodersdorf woods. The body remains being buried at Kiel. It is thought that the remains were either from Lancaster HK 556 of 115 squadron or Lancaster LM230.German records indicate that an aircraft crashed in the Gemeinde Brodersdorf at 23.10 hours on the 26/27^th August 1944,exploding with all bombs on board, leaving a huge water filled crater with a depth of at least twenty feet. The German records report that the crew were presumably dead The report remains on the file of F/O Donald Holder RNZAF pilot of HK556/F.

John and his crew have no known grave and are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.