The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (423544) Flight Sergeant Arthur Bevan Llewellyn, No. 12 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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (423544) Flight Sergeant Arthur Bevan Llewellyn, No. 12 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

423544 Flight Sergeant Arthur Bevan Llewellyn, No. 12 Squadron, Royal Air Force
Killed in flying battle 23 October 1944

Today we pay tribute to Arthur Bevan Llewellyn.

Born in the Sydney suburb of Bexley on 16 August 1918, Arthur Bevan Llewellyn was the son of William Arthur Llewellyn and Berta Llewellyn.

Growing up, young Arthur Llewellyn attended the local primary school before attending Kogarah Intermediate High School. A keen sportsman, Llewellyn was a talented athlete and was holder of the half mile championship for his Western Suburbs Club.

When war was announced, Llewellyn was working as a joinery costing and estimates clerk.

Enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force, he began training as a bomb aimer. After his initial training in Australia he left Melbourne in March 1942 for overseas service, first travelling to Canada, where he spent four months undertaking further training, then to Britain.

As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was one of almost 27,500 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers, who, throughout the course of the war, joined Royal Air Force squadrons or Australian squadrons based in Britain.

After his arrival in Britain, Llewellyn undertook further specialist training before he was posted on the 14th of July 1944 to No. 12 Squadron, Royal Air Force.
Part of RAF Bomber Command, No. 12 Squadron was equipped with four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bombers.

Llewellyn had been serving with the squadron for three months when on the night of 23/24 October he was the bomb aimer in a Lancaster taking part in a bombing raid on Essen, Germany. The aircraft was shot down and crashed near the border between Germany and the Netherlands. Llewellyn and all six of his crewmates were killed. They were fellow Australians: Warrant Officer John Phillip, Flight Sergeant Douglas Maclean, Flight Sergeant John Kelly, Flight Sergeant Kenneth Rowley, Flight Sergeant Ian Fleming; and British crewmate, the flight engineer Sergeant Frank Niblett.

The bodies were recovered from the crash site and the crew are buried side by side in the Winterswijk Cemetery in the Netherlands.

Arthur Llewellyn was 26 years old.

His name is listed here 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 Arthur Bevan Llewellyn, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section