The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (410698) Flying Officer Hugh John McCulloch, No. 207 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 Jana Johnson, the story for this day was on (410698) Flying Officer Hugh John McCulloch, No. 207 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.


Due to technical issues this recording is of poor quality and not for public display.

410698 Flying Officer Hugh John McCulloch, No. 207 Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 28 August 1943
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 24 December 2016

Today we pay tribute to Flying Officer Hugh John McCulloch, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

Born in Ulverstone, Tasmania, on 11 May 1917, Hugh McCulloch was the son of Albert and Olive McCulloch. As a young man he attended Ulverstone State School and Devonport High School. He later graduated university with a Bachelor of Arts. After this he worked for the Education Department for three years before taking up a teaching appointment as a resident master at Caulfield Grammar in Melbourne.

On 31 January 1942 McCulloch enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and began training as a navigator. He married Marjorie Brittingham on 17 October, and a month later embarked for overseas service.

As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, McCulloch 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. He travelled first to Canada for training, then Britain, where he undertook further specialist training before being posted to No. 207 Squadron, Royal Air Force in August 1943. As part of the RAF Bomber Command, the squadron was equipped with four-engine Avro Lancaster heavy bombers.

McCulloch had been with the squadron only a matter of weeks when, on the night of 27 August, the Lancaster in which he was navigator was shot down near Nuremberg, Germany, by a fighter aircraft specially modified to operate at night.

McCulloch and all six of his fellow Australian and British crewmates were killed. They were fellow Australians Flying Officer John Richard Welch, Flight Sergeant Keeble Charles French, and Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Augustine Lynch; and British airmen Sergeant Leslie Thomas Reynolds, Sergeant James Seddon, and Sergeant Arthur Herbert Whetton.

Hugh McCulloch was 26 years old. His body was recovered and he is buried alongside his crewmates at the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery at Durnbach, south of Munich, Germany.

McCulloch’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among some 40,000 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 Flying Officer Hugh John McCulloch, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section