Francis O'Connell ANDERSON

Francis O'Connell ANDERSON Update Details

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ANDERSON, Francis O'Connell

Service Number:	403118
Enlisted:	9 November 1940
Last Rank:	Flying Officer
Last Unit:	No. 11 Squadron (RAAF)
Born:	Boggabri, New South Wales, Australia, 26 October 1916
Home Town:	Cremorne, North Sydney, New South Wales
Schooling:	Not yet discovered
Occupation:	Chemist
Died:	Executed whilst a prisoner of the Japanese, Rabaul Area, Papua, 4 November 1942, aged 26 years
Cemetery:	Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery, Papua New Guinea (CWGC) Burial Ref ~ Plot H. Row C. Grave 6. Personal Inscription ~ "LIFE IS CHANGED, NOT TAKEN AWAY".
Memorials:	Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, Cardwell RAAF Wall

World War 2 Service

9 Nov 1940:	Involvement Royal Australian Air Force, 403118, No. 11 Squadron (RAAF)
9 Nov 1940:	Enlisted Royal Australian Air Force, Flying Officer
9 Dec 1940:	Enlisted Royal Australian Air Force, Flying Officer, 403118, No. 11 Squadron (RAAF)

Help us honour Francis O'Connell Anderson's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Stephen Bonald

The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) Saturday 15 July 1950 p 3

BODIES FOUND OF 15 R.A.A.F. MEN MELBOURNE, Friday.-The bodies of 15 more Australian airmen executed by the Japanese have been recovered three miles south-east of Rabaul, R.A.A.F. headquarters said to-day. Three of the men were from New South Wales. They were Flying-Officer Francis O'Connell Anderson, Corporal Alfred Henry Lanagan, and L.A.C. William M. Parker. They will be reburied with full service honours in Rabaul war cemetery on Tuesday.

A report indicates that Francis O'Connell Anderson and other members of the Catalina A24-18 crew were executed on or after 4 Nov 1942. They had been held as prisoners of war for six months after the Catalina was (presumably) shot down in the Coral Sea and they were picked up by an enemy vessel. At the time it was assumed by authorities that the crew had perished when the plane went down in the lead up to the Battle of the Coral Sea, it was not known that they had been captured. After the war their death date was reclassified when the RAAF's Missing Research Section found their bodies, and those of many other POWs, in mass graves.

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