{"id":1826,"date":"2015-05-05T21:06:42","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plattwarmemorial.org\/?page_id=1826"},"modified":"2025-05-07T07:18:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T07:18:57","slug":"sgt-leslie-bertie-neaves-1924-1945","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/world-war-two\/sgt-leslie-bertie-neaves-1924-1945\/","title":{"rendered":"Leslie Bertie Neaves (1924 &#8211; 1945)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last\" style=\"margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\" style=\"background-position:left top;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-size:cover;-moz-background-size:cover;-o-background-size:cover;background-size:cover;padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;\"><style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-1 fusion-sep-none fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-three\" style=\"margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:31px;margin-left:0px;\"><h3 class=\"title-heading-left fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" style=\"margin:0;--fontSize:24;line-height:1.5;\">Sgt Leslie Bertie Neaves (1924 &#8211; 1945)<\/h3><\/div><span class=\" fusion-imageframe imageframe-dropshadow imageframe-1 hover-type-zoomin\" style=\"-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 7px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);box-shadow: 3px 3px 7px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);margin-right:25px;float:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leslie_bertie_neaves.jpg\" class=\"fusion-lightbox\" data-rel=\"iLightbox[444c7e57c60beea6ab4]\" data-title=\"Leslie Bertie Neaves (1924 &#8211; 1945)\" title=\"Leslie Bertie Neaves (1924 &#8211; 1945)\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"188\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leslie_bertie_neaves-188x300.jpg\" alt class=\"img-responsive wp-image-1832\" srcset=\"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leslie_bertie_neaves-1x2.jpg 1w, http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leslie_bertie_neaves-188x300.jpg 188w, http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/leslie_bertie_neaves.jpg 628w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 188px) 100vw, 188px\" \/><\/a><\/span><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><p>Leslie Bertie Neaves was born in Platt on 23 August 1924 and baptised in St Peter&#8217;s, Ightham on 26 October. He was the eldest of three children of Bertie Neaves, a local brick maker and his wife, Bertha (n\u00e9e 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.<\/p>\n<p>On the outbreak of war, Leslie&#8217;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 &#8211; a heavy bomber unit equipped with Avro Lancaster bombers, with whom he eventually rose to the rank of sergeant.<\/p>\n<p>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.<br \/>\nDuring the night, it was shot down, with the loss of all seven crew who were eventually buried in the Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>Image courtesy of Sally Brown (n\u00e9e Neaves)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":59,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1826","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10489,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826\/revisions\/10489"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}