Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Flight Sergeant Richard Raymond Gray (Service No:210072) served two years with the RANVR prior to enlisting in the RAAF on 25 September 1939 as an Aircraftman I - mustered as Flight Fitter, re mustered as Fitter. Leading Aircraftman Gray served with No 14 Squadron and No 1 Squadron Laverton, and was attached to No 8 Squadron Canberra on 10 August 1940 when he embarked from Sydney for Singapore (RAF Station Sembawang and RAF Station Kota Baru), returning to Sydney on 29 November 1941. Promoted to Flight Sergeant on 1 February 1943, he served with No 41 Squadron, and was attached to 35 (Transport) Squadron at Discharge on 13 January 1947. Older half brother Reg and younger brother Neil were both KiA in 1943, and older half brothers (Reg and Ron) also served in WWII.

Ray was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1914, eldest of  three children of Robert Alexander Gray (b1885 in Bairnsdale, Victoria) and his second wife Edith May Bryan (nee Caple; b1888 in Fremantle, Western Australia). Robert worked in Melbourne, Victoria as a Wharf Labourer and Deck Hand until his divorce in 1911. He was a Driver in Perth in 1914 when he and Ethel (a Widow with two young sons) married. The couple lived in Perth, where Robert was a Driver and Labourer, until 1917. Robert and Ethel settled in Fremantle, where they raised their family and Robert was a Waterside Worker. Following Ethel's death in 1945, Robert remarried.

Ray completed an apprenticeship in Fremante and worked in Fremantle and Capel as a Motor Mechanic. In 1943 in Perth he married Dorothy Margaret Boland (b1922 in Dalwallinu, Western Australia). Following his Discharge from the RAAF, Ray and Dorothy lived in Fremantle and Port Hedland, where they raised their family and Ray was a Motor Mechanic. In the late 1950s the family returned to the Fremantle district - Ray worked as a Mechanic in Armadale and Mandurah, Dorothy died in 1987 and Ray in 2004.