William Leslie Knowles was born in New Plymouth on 24 December 1919, the son of William and Ellen (nee Smith) Knowles. He was one of five siblings. His father, a bricklayer, died in 1925, when William was five years old, leaving his mother to bring up five children, all under ten years old.
William attended New Plymouth Boy's High School and then worked as a printer for the Taranaki Herald.
In 1940 he enlisted with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and began his training. By February 1941 he had been promoted to Sergeant and was sent to the United Kingdom via Canada.
His first operational posting was to No 106 Squadron based at Coningsby, Lincolnshire. In May 1941 the Taranaki Daily News published a letter he had written to relatives where he vividly described being caught up in an air raid while on leave in the West Midlands. "There was a terrific explosion and it is hard to describe what it felt like. The blast effect pushed me hard against the concrete path. There was a flash like lighting, and then the hot air hit us. The window straight above us was blown right inside, and so was some of the wall. Then the tiles from the roofs of some of the houses came showering down on top of us. It seemed like a full minute before things stopped falling."
On only his third operational flight the Hampden bomber he was pilot and captain of failed to return to base, with the loss of all crew on-board.
The flight on 6 August 1941 took off to attack a target in Mannheim, Germany but crashed near Gendringen, Holland.
William Knowles was buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery, Gendringen, Holland. He was 21 years old.
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