Posted coconut : Leading Aircraftman E L Trimper, 28 Operational Base Unit, RAAF

Intact coconut, painted on one side with silver aircraft paint. On the paint is addressed in black 'Mr C W TRIMPER INNESTON YORKE'S PENINSULAR SOUTH AUST/ FROM L.A.C. TRIMPER'.

This coconut was collected on Horn Island by Leading Aircraftman Ernest Lloyd Trimper during his service there between September 1942 and July 1943. He posted it as a joke to his parents, Carl Wilhelm and Clara Trimper, who farmed at Inneston on the southernmost tip of the Cape Yorke peninsular in South Australia (SA). Trimper was born at Wallaroo Mines, SA, in November 1915. He enlisted in the RAAF at Adelaide on 27 February 1941. He qualified as a flight mechanic on 20 September 1941 and was posted to 2 Elementary Flying Training School (ETFS) at Archerfield, SA, then 5 ETFS at Narromine, NSW, in May 1942. In September 1942 Trimper was posted to 28 Operational Base Unit at Horn Island in Torres Strait, servicing both Australian and United States aircraft staging in and out of New Guinea. This strategic post had been bombed by the Japanese earlier in 1942. In July 1943 he moved to Townsville before being posted to Garbutt Airfield in the Northern Territory in December, where he remained for the following year. Trimper was discharged at Adelaide in January 1945.