When 102-year-old WWII veteran Robbie Hall mentioned her wartime fiancé during a Taxi Charity trip, volunteers moved heaven and earth to reunite her with his grave, 81 years after he was killed in action.
Robbie, who was christened Queenie, was engaged to RAF Flight Sergeant Frank Arthur Vincent when his Lancaster Bomber suffered a catastrophic mid-air explosion over Germany on 25 August 1944. Frank, a bomb aimer with 75 (NZ) Squadron based at RAF Mepal, Cambridgeshire, was killed along with his six crewmates.
On the return ferry from the June 2025 Taxi Charity Normandy trip, volunteer Callum Reid sat with Robbie and asked about her life. She spoke of Frank, and Callum began searching for his and found an image of Frank’s Commonwealth War Grave and asked if Robbie wanted to see it.
As Callum read the inscription aloud, Robbie was stunned to hear her name included: “To our darling Frank, treasured memories – Mum, Dad, Sister and Queenie.” Robbie had never known that her name appeared on Frank’s headstone.
Robbie explained that during the war she had been billeted with Frank’s family, who treated her like a daughter, and had clearly chosen to honour her in this lasting way.
Three months later, during the Taxi Charity’s trip to the Netherlands for the Airborne March, Callum discovered that Rheinberg War Cemetery, Frank’s resting place was only an hour and a half’s drive away. With the support of volunteer taxi driver Dean Euesden and Robbie’s companion Kaz Donald, a plan was quickly hatched to take her there.
The following afternoon, Robbie finally stood at her fiancé’s grave. She laid a wooden poppy adorned with a hand-written message:
“To my darling Frank. Loved forever. Never forgotten. Queenie xx.”
WWII veteran Robbie Hall said:
“Seeing Frank’s headstone for the first time after all these years was overwhelming. Reading the words ‘our darling Frank’ brought all the memories flooding back, we were only 21 and so very much in love. To be taken there after 81 years truly felt like the most precious gift.”
Robbie, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, lied about her age to join the WAAF at 17. She became a plotter with Bomber Command under Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, helping coordinate the Allied bombing campaign designed to cripple Nazi Germany’s industrial heartland.
Taxi Charity volunteer Callum Reid said:
“It was one of the most moving moments I’ve ever experienced. Watching Robbie finally see Frank’s grave after 81 years was incredibly emotional for everyone. Robbie felt she owed us a debt, but in truth it is we who owe her and her generation a debt beyond measure. This was a privilege none of us will ever forget.”
The Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, run entirely by volunteers, arranges free trips across the UK and Europe to support WWII veterans, providing friendship, care, and moments of reconnection like Robbie’s visit to the Rheinberg cemetery.
To find out more about the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans visit www.taxicharity.org
