The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (419328) Flying Officer Patrick Leo McCartin, No. 75 (NZ) 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (419328) Flying Officer Patrick Leo McCartin, No. 75 (NZ) Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

419328 Flying Officer Patrick Leo McCartin, No. 75 (NZ) Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 20 November 1944
Photograph: P04003.001

Story delivered 24 November 2015

Today we pay tribute to Flying Officer Patrick Leo McCartin, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force in 1944.

Born in Geelong, Victoria, on 7 December 1915, Patrick McCartin was the son of Michael and Clare McCartin. He was known as “Leo”, after his uncle Leo Aloysius McCartin, who was serving on Gallipoli at the time of his birth and was killed in action in France in 1918.

As a young man McCartin attended St Mary’s Boys’ School in Geelong. Prior to his enlistment in the Royal Australian Air Force on 18 July1942 McCartin worked as a school teacher. In March 1943 he embarked in Melbourne for overseas service. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, Wilson was one of almost 16,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who joined Royal Air Force squadrons in Britain throughout the course of the war.

Arriving in England via Canada in August 1943, McCartin undertook further specialist training before being posted a year later to No. 75 (NZ) Squadron, Royal Air Force.

Known as the “New Zealand Squadron”, No. 75 (NZ) Squadron was part of Bomber Command and was equipped with the four-engine Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.

Over the following months McCartin flew a total of 23 operations with the squadron. On the night of 20 November 1944 the Lancaster in which McCartin was pilot was shot down during a raid near Homberg in Germany. The only survivor, Flight Sergeant Gray, managed to bail out and was taken prisoner. The other six, including four British crew and Australians Leo McCartin and Flight Sergeant Phillip Francis Smith, were officially listed as missing. Later enquiries confirmed that they had all been killed.

McCartin was 28 years old. His body is buried in the British and Commonwealth Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Kleve, Germany.

The names of Leo McCartin and Phillip Smith are listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 other Australians who died serving in the Second World War. McCartin’s photograph is displayed today beside the Pool of Reflection.

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

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section