Photograph album relating to JR Rose

Accession Number P10029.019
Collection type Photograph
Object type Black & white - Print silver gelatin
Maker Unknown
Place made Netherlands East Indies: Dutch New Guinea, Noemfoor Island
Date made 1944
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Description

Outdoor group portrait of 80 Squadron RAAF pilots, grouped in front of a Curtiss P40 Kittyhawk. Those marked with a cross are assumed to be those known to have been killed. Group includes (positions unknown): 416832 Flying Officer (FO) Douglas MacDonald Craig; 424388 Flight Sergeant (Flt Sgt) Gordon Cornelius Dengate; 424899 FO George Boyd Downing; 2972 Flight Lieutenant (Flt Lt) Wilbur Clifford Gates; 424906 FO Kenneth Ernest Goldring; 411448 FO Francis Lawrence Hann (executed 23 March 1945); 421905 Flt Sgt Leigh Oxley Hindley; 419650 FO Lyle Edwin Holtkamp; 011371 Flt Sgt Douglas Charles Hurst; 401645 FO Norman Sidney Kelso; 434344 Sergeant (Sgt) Leon Newman King (executed 23 March 1945); 424420 Warrant Officer (WO) Noel Neville Charles Knight; 437793 Flt Sgt James William Brighton Lennard (killed on operations 13 December 1944); 417969 Pilot Officer (PO) Justin Herbert Miller; 434265 Flt Sgt Ronald Wilford Parry (killed on operations 13 January 1945); 422704 WO William Bowd Reynolds (killed on operations 8 March 1945); 424464 Flight Sergeant (Flt Sgt) Eric Norman Robinson; 424548 FO John Ronald Rose; 413908 FO John Weston Smiles; 407132 Flt Lt Kenneth Brian Innes Smith; 34772 Flt Sgt Neville Lloyd Thornley (killed on operations 14 January 1945); 429003 Flt Sgt Clifford Cavanagh Tothill (killed on operations 22 December 1944); 429418 Flt Sgt Donald James Wallace (killed on operations 24 August 1944); 410186 WO Peter Waters (executed 23 March 1945); 424486 FO Alfred Evans Watts.
WO Peter Waters, FO Francis Hann, Flt Sgt Leon King and Flt Sgt Ronald Parry were all reported missing on 13 January 1945, whilst engaged ferrying Kittyhawks from Noemfoor to Morotai. Neither Flt Sgt Parry, nor his aircraft was ever found. The other three pilots went off course, missing their destination and being forced to land on the Japanese-held Talaud Islands. Captured by the Japanese and made prisoners of war (POW) they were executed on 23 March 1945. Following a war crimes trial in 1945-46 seven Japanese officers were sentenced to death for complicity in the murders of the three men.