The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (434038) Flight Sergeant Mervyn Roger Stedman, 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 Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (434038) Flight Sergeant Mervyn Roger Stedman, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War.

434038 Flight Sergeant Mervyn Roger Stedman, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force
KIA 11 November 1944

Today we remember and pay tribute to Flight Sergeant Mervyn Roger Stedman.

Mervyn Stedman was born on 12 April 1924 in Oakey, Queensland, to Frank and Ellen Stedman. His father had served in the First World War as an air mechanic with the fledgling Australian Flying Corps.

Mervyn attended Dabney State School and Brisbane State High School, and was fond of tennis and cricket. After leaving school he undertook a correspondence course in mechanics with the Central Technical College and worked as an apprentice motor mechanic under his father’s tutelage.

On 9 October 1942 Stedman enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, aged 18. He was trained as navigator, and by June 1943 had received his badge and been made sergeant.

Stedman embarked for overseas service from Brisbane on the 14th of July 1943, arriving in Canada in August. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme he was one of almost 27,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers, who joined Australian and British squadrons in Britain throughout the course of the war.

After three months of training in Canada, Stedman left for the UK, arriving in December. Further specialist training followed in England, and on Christmas Day 1943 he was promoted to flight sergeant. On 16 September 1944 he was posted to No. 467 Squadron, RAAF, as a bomb aimer. As part of Bomber Command, the squadron flew the four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.

Stedman’s career in No. 467 Squadron was not without a few close shaves. One occurred in October 1944 when he and his crew took part in a mission to bomb Wilhelmshaven in Germany. They were on their way back from the target when mechanical failure forced them to ditch the aircraft in the sea. The crew survived, and were rescued and taken back to base in England.

The following month, on the afternoon of 11 November 1944 Bomber Command launched a major raid to bomb refineries at Harburg in Germany. Flight Sergeant Mervyn Stedman was the bomb aimer on board Lancaster “PO-W”, which took off from the Royal Air Force base at Waddington shortly before 4.30 pm. Of the 19 aircraft committed to the mission by No. 467 Squadron only two, including Stedman’s Lancaster, failed to return.

After the war it was established that the aircraft had caught fire and crashed at Bremerhaven, some 90 kilometres west of the target. There were no survivors.

Those killed in the crash with Flight Sergeant Mervyn Stedman were fellow Australians Flying Officer Murray Feddersen, Warrant Officer Ian Gray, and Flight Sergeant William Houston, along with British Sergeants George Carrington, Ronald Heath, and Eric Vevers.

After the war the remains of Commonwealth servicemen buried in Europe were examined and identified where possible. The bodies of the crew were found buried at the Becklingen War Cemetery. Mervyn Stedman rests there under the inscription: “His duty nobly done.”
He was 20 years old.

Flight Sergeant Mervyn Stedman’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with some 40,000 others from 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 Mervyn Roger Stedman, and all those Australians who have given their lives in service of our nation.

Christina Zissis
Editor, Military History Section