Green and white woven tray cloth: Mrs Joyce Mobsby, War Widows Guild of Australia (SA Branch), 1950

Pale green and white patterned woven tray cloth with tassles along two opposing sides.

Woven clothmade by Mrs Erica Joyce Mobsby of Adelaide in 1950. Born in 1913 in Adelaide as Erica Joyce Tassie (but known as Joyce), she worked as a bank clerk in the Bank of NSW. Here she grew friendly with Edward Tompson Mobsby, also of Adelaide. Born in Staffordshire, England in 1910, Edward moved to Adelaide with his family in 1920 and in 1926 also joined the Bank of NSW. They married in 1936 and in April 1939 Joyce gave birth to twin girls, Rae and Jennifer.

Mobsby enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on 6 January 1941 under service number 407799. From January 1941 until May 1942 he attended various air force training in schools in South Australia and Victoria. After gaining the rank of flying officer in February 1942, he was posted to the RAAF Headquarters North Eastern Area in Townsville in May. By the end of the month was seconded to the United States 90th Squadron, 3rd Bombardment Group, based at Charters Towers and flying North American B-25Cs.

The Americans were suffering from a shortage of aircrew and they welcomed the Australian pilot whom they nicknamed 'Mobs'. The other four crew were all Americans but flying as co-pilot, he quickly adapted to the job – Mobsby was flying his first mission just 10 days after he joined them – bombing Lae on the east coast of New Guinea on 9 June, a day after the squadron moved from Charters Towers to Seven Mile Drome at Port Moresby.

On 26 July after just a dozen or so missions, his squadron was called upon to bomb Japanese flying boats at Gasmata in New Britain – a stronghold of Japanese fighters. The five B-25Cs had not left the New Guinea mainland before they were attacked by a flight of nine Zero fighters over Gona Mission – they dropped their bombs and turned for Port Moresby. But the odds were against them, and Mobsby’s Mitchell was seen "burning fiercely from nose to tail" with Flying Officer Mobsby vainly trying to struggle though upper cockpit hatch. No one parachuted out. Another Mitchell was brought down as well. The entire crew of five were lost and the plane wasn’t located.

Back in Adelaide on the same day, Joyce woke up in the middle of the night, sobbing and inconsolable. She’d had a nightmare and heard Edward calling to her that his plane had been shot down. He was posted as missing until May 1943, when his identity disc was discovered with his remains, near Kokoda. He was buried in Bomana War Cemetary. He was 31 years old.

His effects were sent to her. She settled down to life as a widowed mother of two three year old girls, returning to the bank and, after the war, helping to set up the South Australia branch of the War Widows Guild of Australia in 1946, being its treasurer and helping to raise funds by organising fetes and craft shows. She never remarried.

One of the fliers in the squadron Warrant Officer Murray Wilson, wrote to her in late 1942, saying that "he has been recommended for an American Decoration and this should soon be approved." But while the American members of the crew were posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the family of Flying Officer Edward Mobsby was forbidden to accept a foreign award. Joyce enquired about this during the war, but was always knocked back.

Joyce died in 1993, but her daughters, took up the fight and pressured the United States to award the Silver Star to Mobsby. In 2014, having written to President Barak Obama, a posthumous Silver Star was awarded to the daughters of Edward Mobsby in a ceremony at the Australian War Memorial.

This woven cloth tray cloth, woven by Joyce, was possibly part of a country tour of the display of handicrafts by guild members mentioned in Adelaide's "The Advertiser" for 5 October 1950. "The goods will include a collection of beautiful examples of hand-weaving in wool and linen at prices ranging from 4/6 to £10 10." The display was organised by Joyce; she was still active in the Guild’s activities in the 1980s.