The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (432092) Flight Sergeant Lindsay Arthur Bayley, No. 9 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 Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (432092) Flight Sergeant Lindsay Arthur Bayley, No. 9 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Second World War.

432092 Flight Sergeant Lindsay Arthur Bayley, No. 9 Squadron, Royal Air Force
KIA 8 April 1945
Photograph: P04612.001

Story delivered 14 January 2016

Today we pay tribute to Flight Sergeant Lindsay Arthur Bayley, who was killed on active service with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

Born in Ashfield, New South Wales, on 20 May 1915, Lindsay Arthur Bayley was the son of John Edward Bayley and Lena Ammie Bayley. As a boy Lindsay attended Randwick Public School and Sydney Grammar School. A keen sportsman, he played football, cricket, tennis, baseball, and golf, and was active in swimming and sailing.

On 26 October 1940 Bayley wed Valma Eileen McAuley. At the time he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on 6 December 1942 he was working as a factory foreman.

Bayley began training as a navigator, and in June 1943 he embarked on overseas service, first to Canada for further training, then to Britain. As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, he 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.

Valma gave birth to their daughter, Margaret, on 26 October 1943. Bayley, who was in Canada at the time, would never meet her.

After further specialist training in England Bayley was posted in 1944 to No. 621 Squadron, Royal Air Force, a reconnaissance air–sea rescue squadron based in Kenya, and part of the British Forces in Aden. After completing his tour with the squadron he returned to England for further specialist training, and joined No. 9 Squadron, RAF, in March 1945. As part of the RAF’s Bomber Command, No. 9 Squadron was equipped with the four-engine Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.

On 8 April 1945 the men of No. 9 Squadron were taking part in a raid on Lutzkendorf when the Lancaster in which Bayley was a crewmember was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft crashed outside the town of Kapellendorf, near Weimar in Germany. Bayley, fellow Australian Flying Officer Bernard Selby Woolstencroft, and four British crewmates were all killed. Only one man, the rear gunner, managed to bail out and spent the remaining weeks of the war as a prisoner of the Germans.

Lindsay Bayley was 29 years old.

Initially reported missing in action, it was a further eight months before Bayley’s family received official confirmation of his death. In a letter to the family the commander of No. 9 Squadron wrote that Bayley’s loss was a great blow: “I wish I could tell you how much we in this country appreciate the way Australia is helping us in this war, and how bitterly we regret the loss of her sons.”

Bayley is buried in a communal grave alongside his crewmates at the Berlin 1939–1945 War Cemetery. His name is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 other 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 Lindsay Arthur Bayley, and all of those Australians – as well as our Allies and brothers in arms – who gave their lives for their nation.

Dr Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section