The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (416383) Pilot Officer Peter Vivian Monk, No. 100 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 Thomas Rogers, the story for this day was on (416383) Pilot Officer Peter Vivian Monk, No. 100 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

416383 Pilot Officer Peter Vivian Monk, No. 100 Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 17 April 1943
No photograph in collection

Today we pay tribute to Pilot Officer Peter Vivian Monk, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force in 1943.

Born on 18 September 1921 in Penang, in the Straits Settlements now known as Malaysia, Peter Monk was one of four children of Errol Francis Monk, a veteran Royal Navy commander who served in the First World War, and Edith Maud Monk.

Monk attended St Peter’s College in Adelaide and was studying at the Roseworthy Agricultural College when he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on 24 April 1941. He began training as an air gunner, and embarked in March 1942 for overseas service. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, Monk was one of almost 27,500 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers, who joined squadrons based in Britain throughout the course of the war.

Arriving in England, Monk undertook further specialist training before being posted to No. 150 Squadron of the Royal Air Force. On his first raid on the German city of Frankfurt, the aircraft in which Monk was an air gunner was hit by flak on the return journey. The fuselage was riddled with holes, the starboard aileron was shot away, an engine was hit, and the plane caught fire. Monk later told the Australian press:

"We managed to beat out the flames and then began to chuck stuff overboard … I worked like mad getting the machine guns from the back turret. I tossed over two and saw each crash through a house. We were dodging roofs and treetops all the time. We jettisoned everything movable in order to stay aloft … We were so low over the Channel that we hit a wave once … We were out of petrol and in dodging trees [when] we hit a hillside and caught fire."

Nevertheless, the crew managed to return to Britain and Monk spent the next week in hospital with concussion and a broken nose. However, he soon returned to operations.

Monk was briefly transferred to No. 199 Squadron before moving in January 1943 to No. 100 Squadron. As part of the RAF’s Bomber Command, this squadron was equipped with the four-engine Avro
Lancaster heavy bomber. There Monk served as a tail gunner.

On the night of 16/17 April the Lancasters of No. 100 Squadron were participating in a raid on the Skoda factory in Pilsen, in what is now the Czech Republic. On the return journey Monk’s Lancaster was shot down
by flak and crashed north-east of Saarbrücken in Germany.

Monk and all six crewmates – a New Zealander, three British, and two Canadians – were killed. Their bodies were recovered from the crash site and buried in a cemetery at Saarbrücken. They were later re-interred
side by side in the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery at Rheinberg, north of Cologne.

Pilot Officer Peter Monk was 21 years old. His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 other 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 Pilot Officer Peter Vivian Monk, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope
of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section