Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Sub-Lieutenant Richard Pirrie peers through the salt spray toward the smoke-choked coastline of France. It is 06 June 1944. For the boy from Kinkora Road, Hawthorn, this morning should have been a celebration of his twenty-fourth year. Instead, he is commanding Landing Craft Support (M) 47, a small, wooden-hulled vessel tasked with a "special assignment".

Richard is a long way from the classrooms of St Patrick’s College or the familiar roar of the crowd at Hawthorn, where he played three senior games in the 1940 and 1941 seasons. The eldest of six children, he is not the only Pirrie boy in uniform. One brother serves with the AIF and another with the RAAF, leaving three younger brothers still at school in Melbourne.

His job this morning is to take his craft as close to the shore as possible. He must identify and direct fire onto German strongholds for the Allied fleet. Under the direct glare of enemy guns, Pirrie holds his position near Juno Beach. His reports allow the Canadians to neutralise the positions that are pinning them down in the surf.

The record shows that Richard Michael Pirrie died at the height of the action. His vessel was struck simultaneously by a shore battery shell and a floating mine. He was killed instantly on his birthday.

For his "gallant service," he was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches. For eighty years, his body was missing, presumed killed on active service. In June 2024, his name was added to the Normandy Memorial Wall in Plymouth, England, finally marking the spot where the speedy wingman from Hawthorn went to ground.

Lest we forget

Rod Hutchings

Director, Virtual War Memorial Australia