Joseph Stanley Bergin was born in Timaru on November 10, 1910 to parents Joseph and Rubina Bergin.
He was educated at Timaru Boys’ High School and attended Timaru Technical College.
Joseph worked as a storeman/timekeeper for the Public Works Department before enlisting.
He joined the RNZAF as an aircrew trainee in January 1940 and was enlisted at Taieri on July 9, 1940.
His initial training was in Levin and Taieri and he progressed to being a navigator for a Vickers Stirling bomber by January 1943, with 75 Squadron (RAF).
In March 1943 he went to England and was transferred to the 15 (B) Squadron, flying Stirling Mk IIIs, and then Lancaster bombers in late December 1943.
On the night of January 21 1944, he was aboard a 15 Squadron Lancaster bomber on a bombing raid over Magdeburg, Germany.
The raid consisted of 648 aircraft, 57 of them being lost.
The raid was not considered a success, the target was not easily identified and bombs were dropped outside of the target area.
The bomber was reported as crashing at Wormlitz, 10 miles northeast of Magdeburg.
Joseph has no known grave and as was common with aircrew lost in Germany with no known graves, he was commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial (for RAF personnel) in Surrey, United Kingdom.
He was first reported as missing in a Timaru newspaper in March 1944.
The report gave no further details of the incident, as was common in those times.
Joseph is remembered on his parents’ grave in the Timaru Cemetery, row 52, plot 434. It has been cleaned and a poppy added by the Remembrance Army.
As he had no grave of his own other than his name on the Runnymede Memorial, this addition to the parents' grave would have been a comfort to his family, giving them somewhere to visit and remember him.
