The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (402817) Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell DFC, No. 463 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 Tristan Rallings, the story for this day was on (402817) Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell DFC, No. 463 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War.

402817 Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell DFC, No. 463 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force
KIA 11 May 1944

Today we remember and pay tribute to Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell.

Mervyn Powell was born on 22 June 1914 in Mackay, Queensland, the son of Elizabeth and Thomas Powell. His father was a prominent cane farmer and industry representative. Growing up Mervyn had three sisters – Daphne, Nalda, and Elizabeth – and two brothers – Thomas and Gordon.

He attended Hill End School, and was said to be a brilliant student. He then went to university in Brisbane, graduating with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in agriculture.
Before the Second World War broke out Powell was living in Lautoka in Fiji, where he worked as a field chemist for Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (now the CSIRO). He was also a volunteer with the Fiji Defence Force, and a captain in the Army Medical Corps.

Powell enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on 14 October 1940, at the age of 26. He trained as a pilot, and embarked for overseas service on the 27th of June 1941. 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.

Arriving in Egypt in July, Powell was posted to No. 117 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, based in the Sudan and flying Lockheed Hudsons. In August 1942 he joined No. 162 Squadron, RAF, and then No. 40 Squadron, based in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia as the British army pursued Rommell’s Afrikakorps.

For a raid on enemy shipping in Tunis on December 1942, Powell was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. His citation read:
This officer has at all time displayed conspicuous devotion to duty and it is entirely due to his efforts that the results obtained by his squadron have been so successful. He has been a source of inspiration to the whole squadron.
After his tour in North Africa, Powell sailed for Britain in April 1943. There he underwent specialist training to pilot the Avro Lancaster. He was posted to No. 463 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force.

On the night of 10 May, 31 Lancaster bombers from Nos 463 and 467 Squadrons, RAAF, departed as part of a major RAF raid from Waddington, England. Their target was the heavily defended railway yards at Lille in France. Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell was the pilot of Lancaster “JO-J”. Also on board were Australians – Flight Lieutenant Read, Flying Officer Croston, and Flying Officer Robert Croft – and Britons – Sergeant Molyneux, Flying Officer Jacques, and Flight Sergeant Frazer.

Sometime before dawn Powell’s aircraft was shot down by a Luftwaffe pilot. The bomber crashed into the clay pit of the brickworks just outside the Belgian village of Langemarck, some 30 kilometres north-west of Lille. It was determined that the aircraft had likely exploded mid-air, and all aboard had died instantly. Twelve Lancasters were lost on the raid altogether, and 50 airmen were recorded as casualties of the mission.

Powell’s body was found still strapped into his pilot’s seat. The villagers at Langemarck held a memorial service for the crew, and their remains were buried in a nearby cemetery. In 1946 the bodies were exhumed, and Powell’s remains were reinterred at the Wevelgem Communal Cemetery in Belgium, under the inscription, “He died that we might live.”

Mervyn Powell was 29 years old. He was dearly mourned by his family, who placed in memoriam notices in the newspapers following his death. One read:
Our thoughts are far away
In some far distant land,
Where our dear cousin and nephew lies
’Neath the cold and silent ground.
Oh may the wind blow softly
On that sweet and hallowed spot,
Tho’ the seas divide his grave from us
He will never by forgot.
We think of him in silence,
His name we often recall,
And there is nothing left for us
But his picture on the wall.
God knows how much we miss him,
And counts the tears we shed,
And whispers, “Hush, he only sleeps.
Your loved one is not dead.”

Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell’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 Squadron Leader Mervyn Powell, and all those Australians who have given their lives in service of our nation.

Christina Zissis and Lachlan Grant
Editor and Historian, Military History Section