P01839.002 Accession Number: P01839.002

Description

Group portrait of graduates from No 18 Pilots Course who have completed their initial training at No 1 Initial Training School RAAF (Squadron 3, Flight 17). These airmen who enlisted in the RAAF under the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) will now commence elementary flying training.

Left to right, back row – 409368 Aircraftman 2 (AC2) (later Flight Lieutenant) Mervyn Neville Austin; 412899 AC2 (later Warrant Officer [WO]) Claude Edgar Caldwell-Wearne; 410698 AC2 (later Flying Officer[FO]) Hugh John McCulloch (died in a flying battle in Germany, on 28 August 1943); 409098 AC2 (later FO) Edward Thomas Dunn; 412887 AC2 (later Flight Lieutenant [Flt Lt) Alfred Barrie Blackstone; 413054 AC2 (later Flight Sergeant [Flt Sgt]) Jeffry Weeden; AC2 Jones.

Second row: AC2 C.W. or P.K. Harrison; 409432 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Bruce Alexander Niven; 413070 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Leslie Charles Andrews; 413065 AC2 (later Sergeant [Sgt]) George Bisgood Wootten; 413029 AC2 (later FO) Kenneth John Paynter; 413064 AC2 (later WO) Lionel Clarence Wood; 413034 AC2 (later WO) James Anthony Sharkey; 413080 AC2 (later FO) Kelvin Martin Hayes; AC2 J.S. Morrison; AC2 ? Noble; AC2 Johnstone.

Third row: 412874 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Maurice James Carse; AC2 Cooper; 413018 AC2 (later Sgt) Mervyn John Nichols (killed in an accident at Service Flying Training School in Monteith, South Australia on 4 August 1942); 412972 AC2 (later Pilot Officer [PO]) Kenneth Herbert William Kirkland (lost on operations over the Netherlands on 30 January 1944); 413043 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Sidney Donald Thistleton; 413011 AC2 (later FO) Leonard Brian McDermott (killed in an accident in Malta on 24 January 1944); 413093 AC2 (later WO) John Oxley Waugh Olsson; 413101 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Richard Norman Walker; 412472 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Walter Bagley; AC2 M.J. Wilcox.

Front row: 412989 AC2 (later Flt Sgt) Thomas Henry Anthony Mallick (died in a flying battle in Italy, 31 May 1944); 409067 AC2 (later FO) John Murray Aitken; AC2 W.H. or N.W. Reid, probably 409410 AC2 (later Sgt) Neil Wedgewood Reid (killed in an accident in Rhodesia on 5 November 1942); AC2 D.W. Moffatt; 413057 AC2 (later Flt Lt) Terence Dudley Thompson; Sergeant Sullivan; 403040 AC2 (later Warrant Officer) Robert Hawkins Strachan (killed in an accident in India on 16 January 1945); 412939 AC2 (later PO) Allan Thompson Field (lost on operations over Italy on 4 July 1944); AC2 May; 413039 AC2 (later FO) Malcolm Essington Stevenson; 412931 AC2 (later Sgt) James Ernest Eason (killed in an accident in Kenya on 29 January 1943); AC2 Biggs. (Donor K. Hayes)