Leslie Bertie Neaves was born in Platt on 23 August 1924 and baptised in St Peter’s, Ightham on 26 October. He was the eldest of three children of Bertie Neaves, a local brick maker and his wife, Bertha (née Hodges.) The family lived near the brickworks at 2 Holly Mount, and on 30 September 1929, aged five, Leslie started at Platt School. He was a pupil there until 25 August 1933, when he transferred to Borough Green Council School and then to Technical School.

On the outbreak of war, Leslie’s father, a First World War veteran, re-enlisted in the Army and saw service with the Royal Observer Corps. After leaving school, Leslie joined the Royal Air Force and found himself assigned to 463 Squadron – a heavy bomber unit equipped with Avro Lancaster bombers, with whom he eventually rose to the rank of sergeant.

In early 1945, the squadron flew operations against targets in Germany and provided support to advancing ground troops. Leslie was a bomb aimer, and on 20 March 1945, his plane took off at 23:49 hours from RAF Waddington to carry out a raid on a German petrochemical refinery.
During the night, it was shot down, with the loss of all seven crew who were eventually buried in the Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery.

Although Leslie lived his entire life in Platt, his name was not included on the local war memorial in 1946 but was posthumously added to a new plaque commissioned in 2016 and can also be seen in the Book of Remembrance in the RAF Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral.

Image courtesy of Sally Brown (née Neaves)