Dear List I just did a story for our local newspaper about a local boy who was killed in the accident. full story is on the website at the 467/463 website and is quite informative goto www.467463raafsquadrons.com/TrueTales/PD259_JOG.htm ....here is my article underneath Glen Hall Research Officer Mackay Historical Society and Museum Inc. Po Box 1349, MACKAY QLD 4740. phone (H) 49 592 572 mobile 0427 559 020 email: bushpig3@bigpond.com our website: http://www.mackayhistory.org Memories of a local boy lost Thousands of cars pass the Walkerston War Memorial on the Corner of Dutton and Bridge Streets everyday. But how many people look at the memorial and think about the names of 37 men from the district that gave their lives so we can enjoy the freedoms and prosperity we have today. The Memorial lists 18 Men who died in the service of their country in the Great War of 1914 � 1918 and 19 men who paid the supreme sacrifice in the Second World War from 1939 to 1945. These loved ones are buried in cemeteries in Europe, Africa, Middle East, South East Asia as well as Australia and an ever dwindling group of veterans remember the sacrifice they made every Anzac day. One of these men that never came back was from a well-known local Walkerston family. Terence Roy Dent known simply as �Roy� or �Denty�, he was born in Walkerston on 12 February 1923, the son of Robert and Annie Dent. Roy�s grandparents had emigrated from Scotland in 1884 and proceeded to Queensland and eventually settled in Walkerston. Roy worked as a shop assistant in Walkerston prior to joining the Royal Australian Air Force on Anzac Day in 1942. He was one of thousands of young Australian men who were to be trained to be part of the British Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) Bomber Command. Many thousands of Australian men were to lose their lives over Europe during night-time bombing missions of German held territory. Roy Dent however was to be one of the crews who did not die over German territory but as a result of an air accident on a training flight on the night of 31 August 1944 on the barren Monadhliath mountains to the west of the small township of Kingussie in Inverness , northern Scotland. He was the Wireless Operator as part of a crew that was originally with the R.A.F.�s no. 83 �Pathfinder� Squadron before being transferred to 463 squadron only 3 days before the accident. The Lancaster Bomber he was flying in was probably one of the most famous aircraft in the Second World War. Used by the British Royal Air Force it was responsible for the dropping of millions of tonnes of bombs to help halt the German war effort. Investigations at the crash scene seemed to indicate the aircraft blew up in mid-air. It seems that the aircraft in question was damaged by flak in an air raid two nights previously and this may have caused a fracture in the fuel lines, which may have caused the explosion. The bodies of the aircrew were recovered the next day. Roy Dent was 21 years of age at the time of his death. He was interred in the Cambridge City Cemetery in Cambridgeshire, England and his grave is one of 829 burials from the Second World War in that cemetery. On the fiftieth anniversary of the accident in 1994 one of the aircraft propellor blades was handed over to the 467/463 Lancaster Squadrons RAAF Association UK, which was incorporated in a memorial to the seven airman who lost their lives. The memorial is sited at the former Waddington R.A.F. Base in Lincolnshire, northern England. This was the base where the 463 Squadron R.A.A.F. that operated the Lancaster bombers was based. Dent Street in Walkerston was named after the Dent families who have lived in the Walkerston Community for many generations..

Homage from the "Coral Sea Coast" (Lat 17.5s Long 146.1e) Hi to All, I seem to have lost my trusty list of WWII military abbreviations. Can SKS please help with the expanded version of LHD (as in 2/68 LHD)? Look and you shall see Dean Newman, North Queensland Australia. "As time goes by" kenyon@znet.net.au "Those who give all things. They who withhold have nothing"