So, what happened to… *Spoilers*

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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Mrs. Miniver

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kmc-4 — 12 years ago(February 13, 2014 09:20 PM)

Mr. Ballard? I thought he was going to take shelter with everyone else. What happened that he ended up dying?

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hobnob53 — 12 years ago(February 17, 2014 07:59 PM)

Obviously, he didn't make it, or else his shelter wasn't as bombproof as he thought. For purposes of the film's conclusion, it wasn't really necessary to know the details.

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kmc-4 — 12 years ago(February 23, 2014 04:54 PM)

I get that we don't
have
to know what happened to make the point, but I would have liked to know.

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hobnob53 — 12 years ago(February 23, 2014 10:15 PM)

Well, we know he was killed in the German air attack. Presumably he was killed by a bomb, but I suppose it's possible he was strafed just the way Carol was in the car.
Yes, it might be nice to know where, how and under what circumstances he was killed, but ultimately the filmmakers simply didn't think it was important. Besides, it would have required either showing what happened to him (which would have meant either not showing Carol getting killed, which was obviously more important, or showing both of them getting killed, which would have been, well, overkill); or else a lot of expository dialogue near the end (which would have spoiled the dramatic impact of hearing the vicar announce his and the others' deaths in church).
Dramatically, his death did seem a little predictable and, rather sadly, trite.

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kmc-4 — 12 years ago(February 24, 2014 06:05 PM)

All of that is true