The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (417176) Flight Sergeant Brian Gordon Grasby, 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 Gerard Pratt, the story for this day was on (417176) Flight Sergeant Brian Gordon Grasby, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War.

417176 Flight Sergeant Brian Gordon Grasby, No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force
KIA 10 May 1944

Story delivered 16 September 2017

Today we pay tribute to Flight Sergeant Brian Gordon Grasby.

Brian Gordon Grasby was born on 16 September 1922 in Hahndorf, South Australia, to Harold and Dorothy Grasby.

Growing up, the young Brian Grasby attended Balhannah Public School. Despite topping all of his classes he did not go on to secondary school, as there was no high school in the area. Instead he began working as a farmhand.

Grasby was shy, quiet, and loved reading books. His fellow workers nicknamed him “the Professor”, because he was always reading and telling them about what he had learned.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Grasby was keen to join the air force. To achieve this goal he undertook a maths correspondence course, learning trigonometry and logarithms. In January 1942, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and began training as a wireless operator and air gunner.

In March 1943, Grasby left Melbourne for overseas service, travelling first to Canada, and then Britain. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme he was one of almost 27,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers, who, throughout the course of the war, joined Australian and British squadrons in Britain.

Arriving in Britain in June 1943, Grasby undertook further specialist training before being posted to No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. As part of Bomber Command, No. 467 Squadron flew four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bombers.

On the night of 10-11 May 1944, Grasby was the wireless air gunner in a Lancaster taking part in a large raid on the railway yards in Lille in
northern France. The raid was in support of the Allied landings in Normandy that would occur in early June.

The raiding force was under constant attack from German nightfighters, and eventually Grasby’s Lancaster was shot down, crashing into a factory in the south-eastern suburbs of Lille.

Everyone aboard was killed, including Flight Sergeant Brian Grasby, who was just 21 years old.

Today his body is buried in the Hellemmes-Lille Communal Cemetery in Lille, underneath the epitaph chosen by his parents: “His duty nobly done”.
Grasby’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, 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 Flight Sergeant Brian Grasby, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section