The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (41808) Pilot Officer Albert Lance Coates, No. 299 Squadron, RAF, Second World War

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (41808) Pilot Officer Albert Lance Coates, No. 299 Squadron, RAF, Second World War.

41808 Pilot Officer Albert Lance Coates, No. 299 Squadron, RAF
KIA 6 June 1944
Photograph: UK1375

Story delivered 22 December 2014

Today we pay tribute to Pilot Officer Albert Lance Coates, who was killed in the service of the Royal Air Force on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

D-Day has become an iconic event not only in the history of the Second World War but also in the history of the Western world. On this tumultuous day, a multinational Allied force landed on the shores of Normandy. It was the first major step in the liberation of Western Europe from the tyranny of Nazism and fascism.

Albert Lance Coates was born on 25 March 1924 in Benalla, Victoria, to James and Mary Coates. The family resided in the town of Daylesford. In June 1942, at just 18 years old, the young Albert Coates was two years into an apprenticeship as a carpenter with the Victorian Railways when he volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force.

Coates embarked for Britain in May 1943. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was one of almost 16,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who joined Royal Air Force squadrons throughout the course of the war.

That November he joined No. 299 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, Transport Command. He first served as a navigator, and was promoted to Flight Sergeant. After further training he became a pilot and was given the rank of Pilot Officer.

No. 299 Squadron was a special operations squadron that became operational in April 1944. It performed the task of dropping agents and supplying these special operatives as well as resistant movements working behind enemy lines in occupied Europe. On the night before D-Day the squadron carried the paratroopers and gliders of the British 6th Airborne Division to their landing zones in Normandy.

It was while performing this task that the Stirling bomber piloted by Albert Coates, towing a glider full of fully equipped British paratroopers, was shot down over the drop zone. Coates, who was just 20 years old, did not survive. He was one of the first Australians killed in the invasion of Europe.

Coates body is buried in Normandy at Douvres-la-Délivrande War Cemetery, north of Caen.

Coates’ photograph, displayed today in front of the Pool of Reflection, was taken on 4 June 1944, just two days before his death.

Coates was one of thousands of Australians who served within the British and Commonwealth forces on D-Day and throughout the Normandy campaign. On this day of days, Albert Coates made the ultimate sacrifice.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, along with around more than 60,000 Australians killed in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Pilot Officer Albert Lance Coates, and all of those Australians – as well as our Allies and brothers in arms – who gave their lives in the hope for a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section