The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (407873) Sergeant Harold Arthur Phillips, No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2018.1.1.177
Collection type Film
Object type Last Post film
Physical description 16:9
Maker Australian War Memorial
Place made Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, Campbell
Date made 26 June 2018
Access Open
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Source credit to Due to Technical issues this recording is not available for sale to the Public.
Description

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 (407873) Sergeant Harold Arthur Phillips, No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

Due to Technical issues this recording is not available for sale to the Public.

Speech transcript

407873 Sergeant Harold Arthur Phillips, No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force
Killed in action 23 September 1942

Story delivered 26 June 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Harold Arthur Phillips.

Harold Phillips was born in Rawalpindi, in what was then part of India (now Pakistan), on 1 February 1918.

Little is known about his early life. At some point he migrated to Australia, and following the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted in Adelaide in the Royal Australian Air Force.

Following his enlistment he began training as an aircrew and soon embarked for overseas service. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, Watson was one of almost 27,500 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers, who, throughout the course of the war, joined squadrons based in Britain.

After arriving in Britain, Phillips undertook further specialist training before being posted to No. 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force, as part of the RAFs Bomber Command.

On the night of 23–24 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-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber in which Phillips was a crewmember exploded and crashed into the Baltic Sea, off the coast of the Danish island of Lolland. Phillips and all six of his fellow crewmembers were killed. They included fellow Australians, Sergeant Charles Francis Watson, Sergeant Rex Gotts, and Sergeant James Carnley, British crewmembers Flight Sergeant Henry Wade and Sergeant William Trottier, and South African Flight Sergeant George Dickenson.

Harold Phillips was 24 years old.

The bodies of two crewmembers – Watson and Carnley – were recovered and buried in Carnley in Svino Churchyard, in the small village of Svino in Southern Zealand, overlooking Dybso Fjord, some 90 kilometres south-south-west of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Phillips’ body was unrecovered, and today his name, as well as the other members of the crew are commemorated upon the Air Forces Memorial overlooking the River Thames. The Runnymede memorial lists British and Commonwealth airmen with no known grave.

Phillips’ name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among almost 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 Sergeant Harold Arthur Phillips, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section