The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (422506) Flight Sergeant William Stanley Hancock, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian 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 Charis May, the story for this day was on (422506) Flight Sergeant William Stanley Hancock, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War.

422506 Flight Sergeant William Stanley Hancock, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force
Killed in action 10 May 1944

Story delivered 19 August 2017

Today we pay tribute to Flight Sergeant William Stanley Hancock.

William Hancock was born on 19 August 1921 in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield to Arthur and Mabel Jane Hancock.

Little is known about William Hancock before he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on the 22nd of May 1942. At the time of his enlistment, he was working as a clerk.

After enlisting, Hancock began training as a navigator and bomb aimer, and before long he embarked for overseas service. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme he was one of almost 27,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who, throughout the course of the war, joined Australian and British squadrons in Britain.

Arriving in Britain, Hancock undertook specialist training before being posted to No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, in February. As part of Bomber Command, No. 467 Squadron flew four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bombers.

On a mission on the night of 10 May 1944, the Lancaster in which Hancock was the bomb aimer was taking part in a large raid on the railway yards in Lille, in northern France. The raid was in support of the planned Allied landings in Normandy the following June.

The raiding force came under attack from German nightfighters and Hancock’s Lancaster was shot down, crashing into a factory in the south-eastern suburbs of Lille.

Hancock and all of his fellow crewmates were killed. They were Australian Flight Sergeants Brian Gordon Grasby and Herbert Ferguson, Pilot Officer William Felstead; and the British Sergeants Charles Arthur Nash, Cyril Duthoit, and John Mellor.

William Hancock was 22 years old.

His body is buried in the Hellemmes-Lille Communal Cemetery in Lille, in the Pas de Calais region of France.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 Australians who died while 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 Flight Sergeant William Stanley Hancock, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Lachlan Grant Historian, Military History Section