Edwin John Aslett, known as “Jack”, was second of three sons born to Chatham police officer Arthur Aslett and his wife Eleanor. All three of their sons served during WW2: the eldest, Arthur, served in the RAF and David, the youngest, in the Royal Armoured Corps.
Just two months after the celebrations of Victory in Europe Day, when the war in Europe had ended but military operations and transport flights continued across other theatres, one of those routine duties would cost 23-year-old Warrant Officer Jack Aslett, his life.
A former apprentice gas fitter, Jack had enlisted in March 1941, four months after his eldest brother, an RAF rear gunner, was involved in a horrific crash that left him hospitalised for months with serious injuries. During his convalescence, his brother was granted short leave, and on 29 March 1941 he married his sweetheart at St Paul’s, Chatham, with Jack acting as best man.
Jack trained as a radio operator with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in East Africa. By July 1945 he was based at RAF Eastleigh, where the Air Headquarters East Africa Communication Flight operated under RAF Middle East Command. These communications flights linked military bases and civil administrations across the region, transporting personnel, messages and essential documents.
On the morning of Thursday, 12 July 1945, Jack reported for duty aboard a Lockheed Hudson VI communications aircraft, serial FK455. It was expected to be a routine flight. His role as radio operator was a vital one, maintaining contact between the aircraft and ground stations as it crossed long distances over East Africa.
At 07:01 hours the Hudson took off from Eastleigh and began a gentle climb, turning to starboard with its undercarriage still extended. Moments later, at about 300 feet, something went badly wrong. The aircraft suddenly dropped its starboard wing, plunged to the ground and burst into flames.
There were eleven people on board: four crew and seven passengers. None survived.
Jack was among the crew alongside navigator Robert Harry Ryder and Corporal William Richard Jones. The pilot was 23-year-old Brian Squire Fowler of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, an experienced operational flyer who had already completed 43 wartime missions with bomber squadrons before being posted to communications duties.
The passengers included two British Army officers and several senior civilian officials travelling on government business in East Africa, among them representatives connected with the administration of Tanganyika and the East Africa Power and Lighting Company. Their deaths were reported in the following day’s edition of The Times.
All eleven victims were buried in Nairobi the next day, Friday 13 July 1945.
An investigation later found that the aircraft’s rudder trimming tabs had been set almost fully to port before take-off – a setting that could seriously affect control during the climb.
For Warrant Officer Jack Aslett, what began as another routine communications flight in the final months of the war ended in tragedy within moments of leaving the ground – a stark reminder that even after victory in Europe, the risks of wartime service had not yet passed.
His grieving family inscribed the following on his gravestone:
“TO LIVE IN HEARTS YOU LEAVE BEHIND IS NOT TO DIE. MUM, DAD AND BROTHERS”
Jack lies buried in Nairobi War Cemetery, Kenya
Footnote: Jack enlisted with the RAF Volunteer Reserve around the same time as Denis Wilder, also on the Gas Company Roll of Honour. They were the same age and may have enlisted together. Both of their entries in the 1939 Register remain redacted to this day.
