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After completing a beam approach course there late in May, he was posted on the 15th June to No. 11 Operational Training Unit, Westcott, Buckinghamshire. Here he crewed up and completed his training as pilot of Wellington bomber aircraft, before proceeding on the 2nd September, to No. 1651 Conversion Unit, Waterbeach, Cambridge, for conversion to Stirling bomber aircraft, and afterwards to Lancaster bomber aircraft. On the 12th December, 1943, he was posted to No. 514 Squadron, also at Waterbeach, with this Squadron he took part in three operational flights, one to Berlin and another to Brunswick in Germany.

During this latter raid on Brunswick, undertaken on the night of the 14/15th January, Flight Sergenant Mason was captain of a Lancaster bomber, which failed to return to its base and all the members of the crew were classified as missing. Later information was received from a German official source through the International Red Cross Committee, that Flight Sergeant Mason had lost his life and in consequence he was reclassified to missing believed killed in action. In due course his death was officially presumed to have occurred on the 14th January, 1944.

A post war casualty search revealed that the aircraft crashed near Lauenberg, and all the crew were buried in communal grave in the Cemetery there. Subsequently the body of Flight Sergeant Mason was re-interred in Hannover Limmer, British Military Cemetery.

The crew contained two other New Zealanders, Flight Sergeant J.S. Gallagher, of Oamaru, and Flight Sergeant L. Kell of Wellington.

5/2/9088 AS2.
480 hours as Pilot.

Mrs. H. Mason (M) (right aligned)
109 Shelley Beach Road, (right aligned)
AUCKLAND. (right aligned & underlined)