Denis Frederick Dean Wilder was born in the late summer of 1922 at Rochford, Essex, the eldest son of Frederick George Wilder and his wife Emily Julia (née Baker), who had married in Medway the previous year. By the mid-1920s the family had returned to north Kent, where his younger brother Barry was born, followed a decade later by his sister Doreen.
His father was a pensioned Chief Petty Officer of the Royal Navy who later became a licensed victualler, so Denis grew up in and around public houses. By 1934 the family were at the Nag’s Head, and by the time of the 1939 Register they were established at the Coach & Horses in Strood, where Frederick Wilder was recorded as licensee. Dennis himself is not clearly visible in the register, but he is almost certainly the redacted entry within the household.
At some point after November 1940, Denis joined the Royal Air Force. Like many young men eager to serve, he may have overstated his age; while civil records place his birth in 1922, RAF documents consistently give 1920. Whether through haste, determination, or simple opportunity, he entered service and trained as a wireless operator.
By early 1944 he was serving as a sergeant with No. 166 Squadron, part of Bomber Command, based at Kirmington in Lincolnshire. On the evening of 25 February 1944, he took off aboard Lancaster I ME639 at 18:30, one of many aircraft detailed for a major raid on Augsburg in southern Germany. With a crew of seven aboard, the aircraft carried a heavy and mixed load: a 4,000 lb “cookie” high-capacity bomb, along with hundreds of incendiaries intended to ignite fires across the target.
The squadron’s Operational Record Book is stark in its brevity: the aircraft “failed to return. Nothing heard after take off.”
Later records suggest a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the loss. Lancaster ME639 is believed to have been intercepted by a German night fighter and brought down in the Vosges mountains of eastern France, between Ranrupt and Schirmeck.
The aircraft was captained by Pilot Officer H. E. Jupp, who was killed, along with Sergeant J. C. Holbrook. Both men are now buried at Ranrupt Mixed National Cemetery.
Of the remaining crew, the outcomes were varied and, in some cases, uncertain. Flight Sergeant J. C. L. Leigh survived and was taken prisoner, later held at Mühlhausen in Germany. Sergeant T. W. Moran is also believed to have been captured. Two others, Flying Officer A. C. Colan and Sergeant C. G. Virgo, were recorded as missing, their exact fates unresolved in the surviving records.
Sergeant Wilder did not survive. His date of death is recorded as 26 February 1944, the day after the raid, suggesting he may have lived for a short time after the aircraft came down. Unlike his fellow crewmen buried at Ranrupt, he was laid to rest in Colroy-la-Roche, a small village nearby, where he remains the only British war grave.
His headstone bears a simple and moving inscription:
“A BRAVE BOY HAS GONE TO REST;
SO THAT WE MIGHT LIVE HE GAVE HIS BEST”
Sergeant Denis Frederick Dean Wilder lies buried in the Colroy-la-Roche Churchyard, France
Footnote: There are also two quiet coincidences that link Denis back to other names on the Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham Roll of Honour. Denis’ father took over the Nag’s Head in 1932 from the father of Frank William Ruck, the memorial’s only civilian casualty. Denis also enlisted with the RAF Volunteer Reserve around the same time as Edwin John “Jack: Aslett. Both men were of a similar age and may have enlisted together, and both their entries in the 1939 Register remain redacted.
Even before the war, their family lives had already crossed, reflecting the close-knit nature of the community from which they came. Years later, they would be remembered together on the same Roll of Honour.
