The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (401258) Sergeant Charles Francis Watson, No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 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 Joanne Smedley, the story for this day was on (401258) Sergeant Charles Francis Watson, No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

401258 Sergeant Charles Francis Watson, No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 23 September 1942
Photograph: P00888.001

Story delivered 1 November 2015

Today we pay tribute to Sergeant Charles Francis Watson, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

Born in Junee in the Riverina region of southern New South Wales on 14 August 1920, Charles Watson was the son of Francis Thomas Hughes Watson and Ellen Rose Watson. Educated at Bidgeemia Primary School and Graburn Primary School, Charles Watson was a keen sportsman, playing rugby and participating in boxing and athletics, specifically running. Following school, Watson worked as a motor painter at Border Motor & Lacquering Service in Albury.

On 5 January 1941, aged 20, Watson enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. He began training as an air gunner, and in February 1941 he embarked for overseas service, via Canada, to Britain. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, Watson was one of almost 27,500 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who joined squadrons based in Britain throughout the course of the war.

Watson undertook further specialist training in Britain before being posted on to No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force, as part of the RAF’s Bomber Command.

On the night of 23 September 1942 the bombers of No. 50 Squadron were participating in a raid on Wismar, a port town on Germany’s Baltic coast.

While returning from the target, the four-engine Avro Lancaster heavy bomber in which Watson was a wireless air gunner exploded and crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Danish island of Lolland. Watson and all six of his fellow crewmembers were killed. They included Australians Sergeant Rex Gotts, Sergeant Harlod Phillips, and Sergeant James Carnley; British crewmembers Flight Sergeant Henry Wade and Sergeant William Trottier, and South African Flight Sergeant George Dickenson.

Watson’s body was recovered, and he is buried in a churchyard in the small village of Svino in Southern Zealand, overlooking Dybso Fjord, some 90 kilometres from Copenhagen.

Charles Watson was 22 years old.

Watson’s name and those of the other members of the crew are commemorated upon the Air Forces Memorial overlooking the River Thames in Runnymede, which lists all British and Commonwealth airmen with no known grave.

Watson’s name is also listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, among the 40,000 other Australians who died serving 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 Sergeant Charles Francis Watson, and all of those Australians who gave their lives during the Second World War.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section