Date of Birth
December 1921
College
Shoreditch College
WW2 rank
Sub-Lieutenant (A)
H.M.S. Saker, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
Theatre of war
Atlantic
Date of death
14 March, 1944
Location of death
Unknown MIA
Buried/memorial
Lee-on-Solent Memorial
Awards/Honours
Biography
Sub-Lieutenant John Richard “Jack” Purton graduated from Shoreditch College in 1942 and seems to have joined the Royal Navel Volunteer Reserve soon after. On 14 March 1944 S.Lt. Purton was sent out on a Grumman Avenger (JZ496) for an anti-submarine bombing exercise off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He never returned from the exercise and is presumed dead. S.Lt. Purton is remembered at Lee-on-Solent Memorial. He was 22.
Sources
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
www.unithistories.com