Royal Air Force Casualty Log Book Grouping,relating to Air Gunner Vivian C Topham No 462 Squadron RAAF who was lost on air operations on the night of 6/7thJanuary 1945. The log book begins with training in March 1944, he was posted to 462 Squadron in late November 1944 with his first operation as a Mid Upper Gunner to Duisburg on 30thNovember 1944. He flew operationally another four times before his final missing where they were flying as Bomber support in the Ruhr area and his plane was shot down on the return journey, where he and the rest of his crew were killed. He was flying on Halifax Z5 N with his pilot being P/O Rohrlach. What makes this log book interesting and poignant is the large archive of letters and photographs relating to Topham, many written to and from his parents in relation to his first reporting missing and then later notification of him being killed in action, it would appear that he was buried at first with another one of his crew members, as he could not be accurately identified, but later re-interned in military cemetery in his own grave. Apart from the paperwork, other items in the group include photographs, models and items supposedly from the wreck. The archive makes for fascinating reading and brings home the horrors the family’s of lost aircrew must have gone through from notification of their son’s being reported missing to finally being notified of their deaths. Topham was from Turo, Cornwall, appears family later moved to Tiverton, Devon. His father being well known in the city as working with the Post Office and later with the Press, (some documents also relate to him and other members of the family). Commonwealth War Graves Commission shows that Vivian Topham now rests in Hotton war cemetery, Belgium, alongside other members of his crew. He was just 19 at the time of his death.