Beard | Oliver
Biography
Oliver Beard, wireless operator, was a member of the crew of the Stirling III BK718 which was shot down on 4th July 1943, either by Flak88 or Hayo Hermann (luftwaffepilot). They took off at 23.26 on 3th July 1943 from West Wickham and crashed at Mehlem on the westbank of the Rhine, 10 km SSE of Bonn.
The crew is buried at Overloon War Cemetery, except Sgt I.H. Norris, who managed to leave the plane and was a Prisoner of War (POW).
The other crew members who died were:
Official information via findagrave.com:
Plane data: Short Stirling III
Serialnr. BK718
Call Sign: WP-M
Unit: 90 Sqdn.
Take off: 11:26 PM West Wickham airfield.
Target: Köln.
Operation: Bombing.
Shot down by FLAK.
Crashed at Bonn-Mehlem, Germany.
Buried Plot GGG-4-92 Allied cemetery Margraten, Netherlands.
Reburied 01/05/1947 Overloon War Cemetery.
Details of how Oliver came to be with this crew can be found in the extended side-story about the fate of the crew of the Stirling BK718.
Oliver Beard was the son of John Oliver Beard and Margaret Beard of Rock Ferry, Cheshire. Rock Ferry is part of Birkenhead.
John Oliver Beard had married Margaret Wilson in 1912 in Birkenhead. However, this was his second marriage. He was born in 1853 and had originally married Annie Lewis on 16th September 1880 in Birkenhead. Together they had two boys and three girls between 1882 and 1888, though one girl died aged just 1. They were living at 47, Keightley Street, Birkenhead in 1891 and 1901 and John was shown as a Police Constable born in Tranmere or Birkenhead.
By 1911 John had moved with two of his unmarried adult children to 40 Aberdeen Street, Birkenhead but was shown as a widower and a Retired Police Constable from Tranmere. The following year, John went on to marry Oliver’s mother, Margaret Wilson, when he would have been around 59 and she was only about 25. She, too, was born in Birkenhead. They had three children: Olive born 1/4/1913, Christopher born 16/3/1914, then Oliver himself on 15/3/1922 – all in Birkenhead. In 1921 John was still living at 40, Aberdeen Street, Birkenhead with his new wife Margaret and their first two children. John was working as a Wirral Railway Porter.
John died in 1933, aged around 80, when Oliver would only have been around 11. At some point after her husband’s death, Margaret Beard suffered a breakdown and was cared for elsewhere. Olive and Christopher had to take on responsibility for bringing up their brother Oliver. In early 1939, Christopher married Bertha J Pearson and in September that year they were still living at 40 Aberdeen Street, but it was Christopher who was now the head of the household and living with them were his sister Olive and brother Oliver. Christopher was a General Labourer at an Oil and Grease Manufacturers. Olive was a Daily Domestic Servant and Oliver was an Apprentice Painter at a Soap Works. Oliver was working for Lever Brothers (now part of Unilever) which has a famous history in that area.
The commencement of WW2 saw both Christopher and Oliver enter the armed forces with Christopher joining the Military Police and Oliver the Royal Airforce Volunteer Reserve which was the main pathway for aircrew into the RAF during WW2. Indeed, it was Christopher who had to agree to allow Oliver to sign up, a source of a degree of future guilt. Christopher survived the war and was mentioned twice in despatches, on one occasion rescuing someone while under fire in Italy.
Sadly, Oliver was killed on 4th July 1943. He is commemorated on the very impressive war memorial at Port Sunlight in Birkenhead on which many other Lever Brothers employees who died in both wars are commemorated. Port Sunlight is a model village built in 1888 by Lever Brothers to accommodate its workers.
By the end of the war Oliver’s Mother was sufficiently recovered that she was able to live with Christopher and his family until her death in 1969. After the war, Christopher and his wife had two children, Brian and Kenneth. Christopher died in 2004. Although Kenneth too has passed away, Brian has helped with this biography. Oliver’s sister Olive moved to Scotland, never married and she too has since passed away.
