Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Flt. Sgt. Maurice Joseph (Maurie) Freeman (28), eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. M. J. Freeman, of Eglinton, has been posted missing following the big air attack on Berlin last Tuesday night. Maurice, who sailed for England during November, 1942, was a Lancaster pilot. He was due for promotion to the rank of Pilot Officer.

He was a prominent League footballer playing for Charlestons and also captained the district team. Maurice was also known in cricket and tennis circles. He was unmarried.

After leaving St. Stanislaus' College, he worked on the land and became one of the most popular lads in the city.

The wire received from the Air Board, stated that Maurice had been posted missing, so there is every hope that he may have parachuted to safety. His many friends will earnestly  wish that this is the case.  ln his last letter home he mentioned that he was looking forward to returning to Australia by spring.

He said he had been playing league and soccer to keep fit but did not think much of the English foggy weather. Pat and Terry, brothers, are both in the Air Force in Northern  Australia.

While the deepest sympathy will be extended to Mr. and Mrs. Freeman by their many friends, those who know Maurice feel that he would have managed to parachute to safety.

Maurice Joseph FREEMAN was born in Bathurst New South Wales, on 20 Sep 1915.  

He was employed as a Station Overseer at the time of his enlistment on  12 Sep 1941.  Screened and selected for aircrew training, he then underwent the length process required to take a new enlistee to qualified pilot flying on operations, unde the Empire Air Training Scheme, which generally comprised :

         Induction Training - at State-based centres generally in the trainee's State of enlistment

         Elementary Flying Training - On the legendary DH82 Tiger Moth

         Service Flying School  - DH 82Tiger Moth / Avro Ansons or Airspeed Oxfords

         Multi engine training -  Generally on Ansons or Oxfords

         Heavy Conversion  - to the aircraft class they would be flying on Operations

         Operational Training (where trainees were 'crewed up' with the men with whom they could go to war) in the aircraft type they would be operating.

Thereafter, they were posted to an operational squadron (in this case No. 460 Squadron, Australia's most experienced bomber squadron, operating from the UK at Binbrook in Lincolnshire).

Their aircraft, Lancaster tail number ED644, one of 26 despatched from Binbrook, was lost on its third operation on the night of 23 November 1943, a raid on Berlin.  Three of the crew were killed (the pilot and the two gunners;  the pilot either inacpacitated by enemy fire or remaining with the aircraft to enable the crew to get out, and the two gunners either incapacitated or unable to escape) and the remainder taken prisoner.

The three men KIA are buried in the Reichswald Forest cemetery in Germany.

*Pilot - Maurice Joseph FREEMAN

Engineer - D A JACKSON (RAF)

Navigator - A E ASHLEY

Bomb Aimer - P A LIDDLE

Wireless Operator - C R KINGSMILL

**Mid Upper Turret Gunner / Rear Gunners;  David ABERLE, T ELLIOTT

*= KIA