The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (260706) Flight Lieutenant Barry Mortimer Cox, No. 75 Squadron, 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 (260706) Flight Lieutenant Barry Mortimer Cox, No. 75 Squadron, RAAF, Second World War.

260706 Flight Lieutenant Barry Mortimer Cox, No. 75 Squadron, RAAF
Flying Battle 28 April 1942

Today we remember and pay tribute to Flight Lieutenant Barry Mortimer Cox.

Barry Cox was born at Summer Hill, New South Wales on 9 October 1915 to James Cox, an officer in the Australian Light Horse, and Kathleen Cox.

Wartime commitments meant that James Cox could only spend short periods of leave with his new family, but he was able to attend his son’s christening in early March 1916 only days prior to sailing to war.

Sadly James Cox would never return to his young family. On 19 September, during the opening phase of the Megiddo offensive, he was shot and killed while attacking an Ottoman machinegun position at Tul Keram in Palestine. He was 26 years old.

Little is known of Barry’s early life, but by the time the Second World War began, he was working as a stockbroker’s clerk in Sydney.

He enlisted for service with the Royal Australian Air Force at Mascot on 12 February 1940 and was accepted for pilot training.

Cox was sent to No. 4 Elementary Flying Training School at Mascot. After completing his initial flying on Tiger Moths, he was posted to No. 22 Squadron at RAAF Base Richmond. Here, Cox flew Avro Anson and Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation Wirraway aircraft.

On 1 June Cox married Alwynne Theodora Stephens at St. Michael’s Anglican Church at Vaucluse. It was a quiet ceremony and their photograph featured in the Daily Telegraph two days later.

Cox was awarded his flying badge and commissioned with the rank of pilot officer at the end of June and was posted to No.1 Service Flying Training School at Point Cook in Victoria, where, as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, he continued training to become a fighter pilot.

His next posting which took place in early September 1940, was to No. 4 Squadron which was based in Canberra. Theo moved to Canberra to be with her husband and they settled in a place on Booroonadara Street, in Reid, close to the Australian War Memorial which was still under construction.

On 4 April 1941, Cox was returning to Canberra from Narrandera flying as part of a formation of three Wirraways when he was involved in a mid-air collision. The formation was flying over the Governor General’s residence when Cox’s aircraft was struck by another Wirraway which had just taken off from Canberra airport.

The other pilot, Pilot Officer Rupert Baster had been flying west into the sun towards the Governor General’s residence and although he had seen the three Wirraways, he lost them in the sun which led to the collision.

Cox and Baster managed to bail out of their stricken machines and parachute to the ground, but Cox’s passenger, Corporal William Ramsay was unable to get out and was killed when the aircraft crashed.

Lord Gowie, the Governor General, acting Prime Minister Arthur Fadden, and Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, who had all witnessed the crash, ran some hundreds of metres to the crash sites to assist. Fadden arrived at Baster’s aircraft just as Baster landed nearby. Burnett reached Cox’s aircraft where he found Ramsay dead and Cox, who had landed nearby alive but badly shaken. Both pilots were taken to hospital suffering shock, but soon returned to duty. Rupert Baster was killed in an air battle over Libya in January 1942.

In mid-December Cox was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and in early March 1942 he was posted to the newly formed No. 75 Squadron, RAAF, a fighter squadron equipped with Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawk fighters. He was part of the first flight of Kittyhawk aircraft to arrive at the squadron’s base at Townsville soon after.

In mid-March the squadron flew to Port Moresby. Cox was part of the first flight of four of the squadron’s aircraft to land at 7 Mile Strip on 21 May. The pilots had a rough welcome to New Guinea, when army anti-aircraft gunners opened fire on the Kittyhawks damaging each aircraft. The accident was put down to the gunners having never seen Kittyhawk fighters before and the red circle in the centre of the RAAF roundel being mistaken for Japanese markings. The RAAF roundel was quickly amended and the red circle removed.

That same afternoon Cox and another pilot, flying two of the less damaged fighters, intercepted and shot down a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft. It was the first kill for the squadron, which had only been formed 17 days prior.

Cox had a brief trip back to Townville at the end of March to organise replacement pilots and fighters for the squadron. After returning to Port Moresby, the action was intense. During one sortie, Cox shot down a Japanese Zero. By the middle of April, the squadron was suffering due to losses of pilots and aircraft and those that remained on duty were fighting off exhaustion and various tropical illnesses.

On the evening of 27 April, the pilots of No.75 Squadron had been met by a senior RAAF officer who called the pilots cowards for not “mixing it” with the Japanese fighters. Incensed, Jackson and his men vowed to close with and engage the Japanese fighters, a fateful and fatal decision.

The following morning a formation of eight Japanese bombers with 12 zero fighters escorting them were detected approaching Port Moresby on their daily bombing run. Only six Kittyhawks were available to intercept the Japanese formation.

Led by Squadron Leader John Jackson the fighters took off from 7 Mile Strip around ten minutes later. Cox was flying Kittyhawk A29–47 with his personal markings on the nose “Sweet Adeline”, the title of a popular song of the time.

Soon after take-off, the Australian and Japanese aircraft met and the sky became full of the sounds of aircraft locked in combat. John Jackson’s Kittyhawk was seen to turn out of the battle and crash at full power into Mount Lawes. Cox’s Kittyhawk was seen soon after in a steep dive, its Allison engine roaring at full power around 8 kilometres to the north-west of Seven Mile Strip, before crashing into the Waigani Swamp.

Australian soldiers from a nearby army unit soon reached Cox’s crash site. They found the fighter had ploughed nose-first into the soft ground of the swamp with only the tail still visible. The soldiers could not begin to affect a rescue as the Kittyhawk was burning fiercely underground.

On 4 and 5 May, members of No. 75 Squadron travelled to the crash site where they recovered pieces of the aircraft, including a painted part of the nose which carried the marking “Adeline”.

Several attempts were made to dig down to the cockpit however the soil continually collapsed in on those working to locate Cox’s remains. Several suspected bone fragments were recovered, but due to the charring the squadron medical officer could not confirm that the fragments were bone. Further attempts to recover Cox’s remains were abandoned.

Cox was initially listed as missing in action, but a later investigation concluded that he had been killed either prior to or as a result of the crash. He was 26 years old.

No.75 Squadron’s intelligence officer Stu Collie wrote of Cox at the time of Cox’s loss that:
Barry Cox was a loveable personality who was extremely popular. He and other young fathers constantly compared notes on their children… Barry never lost his smile and as a flyer of P–40s he had few peers.

After the war, Barry Cox’s name was added to the Port Moresby Memorial, which lists almost 750 names of those who have no known grave.

His 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 Flight Lieutenant Barry Mortimer Cox, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Michael Kelly
Historian, Military History Section