Four airmen killed when their Lancaster crashed in Germany in December 1944 were commemorated under their own names at a rededication service at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Venray War Cemetery in the Netherlands, the Ministry of Defence said in a report published on 7 October 2026. Flying Officer Leslie Markland Hough of the Royal Australian Air Force, Pilot Officer John Henry Tales, Sergeant Henry Charles Burnside and Sergeant John Lawson, the last three of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, had lain in graves marked "unknown" after post-war administrative errors.

According to the report, Lancaster PD374 of No. 218 Squadron RAF left RAF Methwold in Norfolk on the morning of 8 December 1944 as part of a force of more than 130 aircraft tasked with attacking the Neerbeck oil plant at Homberg in Germany's Ruhr region. Three of the seven-man crew escaped by parachute and became prisoners of war; the other four died. Eyewitness accounts cited in the account suggest Hough, the captain, remained at the controls of the burning aircraft so others could escape.

At the service, Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre caseworker Tracey Bowers said families had attended, while family members of Tales and Lawson also paid tribute. The graves will now be maintained by the Commission under the airmen's names.