Walter Hardy

Bank: National Provincial Bank

Place of work: Shaftesbury branch

Died: 6 November 1944

Walter Hardy was born on 23 January 1921, the son of Walter and Alma Hardy. He was educated at Shaftesbury Grammar School. He joined the staff of National Provincial Bank as a probationer in May 1939 at Shaftesbury branch, and he often worked at that branch's sub-office in Gillingham. He was promoted to clerk in October 1941. 

In April 1942 Hardy left the bank to go on war service, joining the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. On 6 November 1944 the aircraft in which Flight Sergeant Hardy was flying, a Lancaster Pathfinder, failed to return from a bombing raid over Dortmund. It was not until a year later that his relatives were finally informed that he was presumed to have died on that day. He was 23 years old and left a widow, Joyce, whom he had married in 1942.