The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (434033) Leading Aircraftman Kenneth Hall Smith, No. 8 Service Flying Training School, RAAF, 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 (434033) Leading Aircraftman Kenneth Hall Smith, No. 8 Service Flying Training School, RAAF, Second World War.

434033 Leading Aircraftman Kenneth Hall Smith, No. 8 Service Flying Training School, RAAF
Accidentally killed 26 July 1943
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 26 July 2016

Today we remember Leading Aircraftman Kenneth Hall Smith, who died while serving with the Royal Australian Air Force in the Second World War.

Known as “Ken”, Smith was born on 28 July 1924 in Warwick, in the Darling Downs of south-east Queensland. He was the third child and middle son of Richard Woodcraft and Isabella Smith. His father was a prominent member of the Warwick community, and served as Town Clerk.

Smith attended Warwick Intermediate School, where in 1938 he won a scholarship allowing him to enter Scots College. He was described as having a “generous, cheerful nature” and a “manly character”. He was also an outstanding sportsman, a member of the school’s first XI and XV rugby sides and part of the athletic team. In 1939 he was a member of the Queensland Schoolboys’ Hockey Team that took part in a tournament in Victoria, and won his school’s championship and junior championship in tennis. He also played cricket and was described as an “aggressive batsman and a brilliant slip fieldsman”.

In mid-1940 Smith left school and took up a position with the Commonwealth Bank. When the RAAF’s Air Training Corps was formed in Warwick, Smith was among the first intakes. Formed in 1941, the corps was designed to prepare youths between 16 and 18 for future aircrew training. Smith did well in this preliminary training, and joined the RAAF some two months after his 18th birthday in October 1942.

He was first posted to No. 3 Initial Training School at Kingaroy in south-east Queensland, and then No. 8 Elementary Flying School at Narrandera in central New South Wales. Smith was on his way to becoming a pilot, and was eventually posted to No. 8 Service Flying Training School in Bundaberg, Queensland.

On 26 July Smith was piloting a twin-engine Avro Anson while practicing formation flying. During the flight Smith’s Anson collided with another aircraft, and he crashed into the sea south-east of Elliott Heads. Both Smith and his co-pilot, 19-year-old Leading Aircraftman Cedric Neville Jones, were killed. The other aircraft returned to the aerodrome with a damaged fuselage. A preliminary report into the collision determined the accident had probably been caused by either disobeying orders and/or a lack of vigilance.

Neither the aircraft nor the bodies of those killed were ever recovered. Smith died two days before his 19th birthday.

Leading Aircraftman Smith is commemorated here on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 Australians who died during the Second World War.

This is just one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Leading Aircraftman Kenneth Hall Smith, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Karl James
Historian, Military History Section