The families of the two young men exemplified the commercial powerhouse which was the north west of England 100 and more years ago. Their fathers’ activities spoke of the rivalry between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, as well as the determination of Victorian Manchester to become a major port, though Cottonopolis, as it was known, lay 40 miles from the sea.
Sir Lionel Warner had been a senior manager on the London and North Western Railway and was general manager and secretary of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. W C F Bacon had been master of a sailing ship, a founder of a firm of shipowners and shipbrokers and a director, and then chairman, of the Manchester Ship Canal Company.
Bill Warner was educated at Malvern College in Worcestershire. In this century it was still possible to come across someone at the college who remembered Warner as a prefect, kindly towards younger boys. He was commissioned in 610 in 1937 and took up full time service when the Auxiliary Air Force was embodied in August 1939. On 26 July 1940, he was promoted to acting Flight Lieutenant and became the squadron’s ‘B’ Flight commander.
By the time of his death on 16 August, Warner had been credited with the probable destruction of two Bf 109s. On that day, off Dungeness, Sergeant Arnfield of 610 sought to aid a Spitfire, apparently stricken and being attacked by Bf 109s. Arnfield damaged one of the assailants but had to break-off, low on fuel. He had witnessed the end of Bill Warner, whose name appears on the Runnymede memorial.
Charles Bacon was educated at Sedbergh School, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a demie (half fellow) and a research chemist. His route into the RAF was via the University Air Squadron and the RAFVR. He flew Fairey Battles in France in 1940 and survived the sinking of RMS Lancastria off St Nazaire which caused the deaths of thousands of British military personnel and civilians trying to escape the German advance.
Flying Officer Bacon had been with 610 Squadron at Acklington, Northumberland, for two weeks when, on 30 September 1940, during dogfight practice, his Spitfire collided with that of Sergeant H R Clarke. Bacon died, Clarke took to his parachute and survived.
Charles Bacon is buried in Windermere (St Mary’s) cemetery in the area where his widowed mother was living in 1940. The private gravestone gives his rank as Pilot Officer.
Geoff Simpson FRHistS
Bill Warner is in the centre of this photograph taken at one of 610’s pre-war camps. On the left is Paul Davies-Cooke, also killed in action in the Battle of Britain, and on the right is Brian Smith, who suffered serious burns in the Battle but lived into extreme old age, dying in 2013. Occasions such as this were often used in the AAF to test the social competence of potential recruits, including their behaviour when in drink. Copyright the Medcalf family.
