The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (434198) Flight Sergeant Lloyd Francis Peel, No. 51 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 Dennis Stockman, the story for this day was on (434198) Flight Sergeant Lloyd Francis Peel, No. 51 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

434198 Flight Sergeant Lloyd Francis Peel, No. 51 Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 31 March 1944
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 23 May 2015

Today we pay tribute to Flight Sergeant Lloyd Francis Peel, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force in 1944.

Born on 11 December 1921 in the town of Batlow, New South Wales, Lloyd Francis Peel was the son of Henry and Elizabeth Peel.

As a young boy Peel attended Kunama Public School, then Tumut Intermediate High School. A keen sportsman, Peel played football, cricket, tennis, and golf, and was into shooting.

Following school, Peel worked as a tally clerk at the National Box Company sawmill at Kunama. Prior to enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force on 2 November 1942 Peel served in the Militia, first with 60th Australian Corps Field Park Company and then with the 2nd Australian Corps of Engineers.

Following enlistment in the RAAF Peel began training as an air gunner.

In September 1943 Peel embarked in Brisbane for overseas service. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, Peel was one of almost 16,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who joined Royal Air Force squadrons in Britain throughout the course of the war.

Arriving in England in October 1943, Peel undertook further specialist training before being posted on 7 March 1944 to No. 51 Squadron, Royal Air Force. Equipped with the four-engine Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber, No. 51 Squadron was part of Bomber Command.

Peel had been with the squadron for only a matter of weeks when on the night of 30 March 1944 the Halifax bombers of No. 51 Squadron took part in a raid on Nuremburg. During the operation the Halifax in which Peel was a gunner was shot down by a German night fighter and crashed near Wahlen in Germany. Peel and four of his crewmates – Australians Geoffrey Brougham, Kenneth Radley, and Arthur Williams, and British crewmember Harold Bowling – were all killed.

Two others, Australian John Gowlland and Britisher H. Williams, managed to parachute to safety.

Peel was 22 years old. His body was buried alongside his fellow Australian and British crewmembers in the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery in Hanover, Germany.

His name and those of his fellow Australian crewmates are listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 others who died 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 Sergeant Lloyd Francis Peel, and all of those Australians – as well as our Allies and brothers in arms – who gave their lives in the hope of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section