The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (429475) Warrant Officer George Thomas McBryde, No. 460 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2018.1.1.71
Collection type Film
Object type Last Post film
Physical description 16:9
Maker Australian War Memorial
Place made Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, Campbell
Date made 12 March 2018
Access Open
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Description

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 George Thomas McBryde, the story for this day was on (429475) Warrant Officer George Thomas McBryde, No. 460 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

429475 Warrant Officer George Thomas McBryde, No. 460 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force
Killed in flying battle 19 March 1945

Story delivered 12 March 2018

Today, we remember and pay tribute to Warrant Officer George Thomas McBryde.

Born in Rockhampton, Queensland, on 16 November 1923, George McBryde was the son of George and Edith McBryde.
Young George McBryde attended Leichardt Ward Boys School, then Rockhampton Technical College. After leaving school, he was employed first as a clerk at the Rockhampton City Council, and then as an insurance clerk and cashier for the Queensland State Government Insurance Office.

When George turned 18, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and began navigational training to become a bomb aimer. After completing his initial training in Australia, he embarked in Sydney on 13 September 1943 for overseas service.

As part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was one of almost 27,500 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers who, throughout the course of the war, joined Royal Air Force squadrons or Australian squadrons based in Britain.

McBryde’s journey to Britain took him via Canada, where he arrived in October 1944 for more specialist training before he embarked in Halifax for Britain in March 1944.
Arriving in Britain, McBryde received more training before he was posted to No. 460 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, on 6 March 1945.

No. 460 Squadron would become the most highly decorated Australian squadron in Bomber Command, and the squadron that suffered the highest casualties. Flying twin-engined Vickers Wellington medium bombers, and then the four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber, the squadron lost over 1,000 men: Australian, British, Canadians, New Zealanders and South Africans. Almost 600 Australians from 460 Squadron are listed here on the Roll of Honour.

On the morning of 19 March 1945, less than two weeks after McBryde had joined the squadron, 22 Lancasters from 460 Squadron took part in a raid on Hanau, Germany. As they returned from the mission, low cloud cover reduced visibility over the home airfields of the Bomber Command squadrons in Lincolnshire, England. The Lancaster in which McBryde was the bomb aimer was being homed to RAF Kelstern airfield, only a few kilometres from the squadron’s home at Binbrook, when it crashed into high ground while making its approach toward the runway.
McBryde and all six of his fellow Australian and British crewmates were killed. They were Australians Pilot Officer Geoffrey Browne, Flight Sergeant Llewellyn Grant, Flight Sergeant Jack Stacey, Warrant Officer Alexander Moss, Flight Sergeant Rex Schodde, and British airman Sergeant Jack David.

George McBryde was 21 years old.

The Australian members of the crew were recovered from the crash and buried side by side in the Royal Air Force plot at Cambridge city cemetery.

McBryde’s name is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my left, among almost 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 Warrant Officer George Thomas McBryde, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Lachlan Grant
Historian, Military History Section

  • Video of The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (429475) Warrant Officer George Thomas McBryde, No. 460 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Second World War. (video)