Philippine Liberation Medal : Able Seaman A W Lade, HMAS Australia (II)

Philippine Liberation Medal. Unnamed as issued.

Alan Walter Lade was born at Scottsdale, Tasmania, on 5 October 1924. He was working as a flax mill hand when he travelled to HMAS Huon, in Hobart shortly after his eighteenth birthday, in October 1942, to enlist in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve.

After initial training at HMAS Cerberus in Victoria, between November 1942 and February 1943, Lade was assigned the service number H2336, appointed an ordinary seaman and posted to HMAS Yandra, a requisitioned merchant vessel converted to patrol and anti-submarine work. Based in Sydney, Yandra was engaged in patrol and escort duties along the Australian east coast, as far as New Guinea.

In August 1943 Lade transferred to the sloop HMAS Warrego, which was engaged in convoy duty in New Guinea. He was appointed an acting able seaman on 14 October. Lade returned to Sydney in March 1944 to undertake radar courses combined with service in HMAS Yandra. In June he was posted to the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia.

The Australia supported Allied landings in New Guinea and the Netherlands East Indies before joining the Allied naval forces in the Philippines. The ship suffered heavy casualties after a Japanese kamikaze suicide aircraft attack on her at Leyte Gulf on 21 October 1944. After repairs Australia returned to support the landings at Lingayen Gulf in January 1945. The ship was hit by a kamikaze on 5 January, which caused the deaths of 25 men and serious wounding of 30, many of them gun crew.

Alan Lade was one of a number of men who made up 'scratch' gun crews to replace the men who had been lost. On 6 January, less than a day later, he too was killed in a kamikaze attack. The aircraft crashed into the base of the centre funnel and exploded in a fireball, which resulted in the deaths of 14 men and wounding of 26 others.