Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

FATHER GIVES SON HIS WINGS
CO and LAC
Thiry-one young RAAF pilots paraded before the CO at a service flying training school in Victoria yesterday morning for the passing-out ceremony. Thirty of them, already had  their wings; the odd one was to receive his that day. His name was called, and he stepped smartly forward and saluted. The CO also stepped forward and pinned the wings on his 
left breast.
The young LAC saluted again, returned to his place in the ranks, and a ceremony which is believed to have been unique in the Southern Hemisphere was over.
For the CO and the young LAC were father and son — Group-Capt Brown, who won the Air Force Cross as a fighter pilot in the last war, now commands this SFTS, and LAC Charles Douglas Sanger Brown, 21, who is training to be a fighter pilot in this war. LAC Brown is Group-Capt Brown's second son, and he is a grandson of Sir Charles Merrett,  president, Royal Agricultural Society. He began to serve his country in the Sea Scouts in Sydney. Afterwards he studied electrical engineering at Mosman Junior Technical School,  and enlisted in September, 1941. His elder brother, Bombardier Rolf Brown, is in the AIF. He has had 2 years' service in Darwin, and was captain of an AA gun there which shot down a Japanese divebomber during one of the big raids. Now he is somewhere in New South Wales. In a short address to the passing-out detail, Group-Capt Brown warned them against overconfidence, urged them to realise the debt they owed to their instructors, and advised them to be tolerant of the ideas they would encounter when they went abroad.