418031 Horace George Williams 7 S.f.t.s. 24/12/194, Looking for clues

[Brendan Cowan]

Can anyone help with this one?

Dean, I'm sure this is right up your alley.

A friend sent me a request:

"Gwen (a niece of mine here in Melbourne) found this under their house and would like to find the rightful family owner…. Don’t know if it is military by nature or reference."

My response to this so far has been:
____________________________________________________________________
This is very definitely military.

The inscription on the object reads:

"418031 Horace George Williams 7 S.F.T.S. 24/12/1942".

The first number is a RAAF Service number indicating an enlistment in Queensland.

7 SFTS is the title of a WWII military flying school - No 7 Service Flying Training School. The SFTS performed initial flying training with the graduates moving on to more advanced or specialised training units

During WWII, there were three units set up within the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) with this title:

Australia: 7 SFTS Deniliquin, NSW.

England: 7 SFTS Sutton Bridge, UK.

Canada: 7 SFTS Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada.

Aircrew from Commonwealth nations including Australia were trained at EATS establishments in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and other locations - so it is conceivable that an Australian could be at the English or Canadian unit as an instructor (unlikely to be a pupil) but I would be more inclined to think that he was serving at Deniliquin.

I am checking with colleagues to confirm whether H.G.Williams enlisted with the RAAF in Queensland and then met his fate at 7 SFTS on 24/12/1942 which should just about tie up the identification of this object conclusively. Very sad that he should lose his life while at a training unit on Christmas eve.

As for the object itself, it does seem to look like either a commerative memorial piece or urn of some description.

How it came to be where it is now is intriguing.

That's what I can tell you off the top of my head - I'll keep looking for more information and am confident of finding more soon.
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Can anyone else add some ideas.

The aim here is to describe the piece and its background in the hope of tracking down the family and returning the object.

Thanks folks

BC

Attached Image

[gph]

Can you give us a sense of scale Brendan? It looks like something that could have held HGW's ashes. :(

[Brendan Cowan]

Thanks Grahame,

I haven't seen it myself, but the bottle top sitting to the right of it would seem to indicate that it is not particularly large.

I am told via the family of the people who discovered it under their rented house that it is hollow, so it may actually be an urn.

Hence their desire to do the right thing and find a way of returning it to Williams the family if at all possible.

BC

[Dean]

Leading Aircraftman Horace George Williams 418031 actually enlisted in Melbourne on 24 Apr 42. His service number indicates he was a student pilot.

Quite possibly before joining the RAAF that he was in the army and although there is a 13 day difference in birth dates on the World War II nominal roll the same name is given for his next of kin, William Williams.

At the moment I haven't been able to track down any more details.

[Brendan Cowan]

Thanks Dean.

There are a few new leads in that.

It appears that the 24th was not his lucky day.

He joins the RAAF on April 24 and meets his fate exactly nine months later at 7 STFS.


BC

[Brendan Cowan]

Wow,

Thanks Gordy.

You just never fail to come up with the goods!

That is a heck of a coincidence losing two LAC Williams at the same unit and the same day.

I'll pass that info on to the custodians of the object.

Thanks a million.

Brendan C

[gordon]

Dean,

How do u tell from his service number that he was a student pilot? He would have had that number with him for all of his service life.

Gordon

[Dean]

This is based on a document I was emailed years ago on service numbers and comes from the book "Medals to Australia" R D Williams ISBN 0 7316 8175 4 (3rd edition) which provides a state by state break-down of service numbers allocated.

Any member who enlisted in Victoria and who wanted to be aircrew we allocated numbers between the following ranges: 400001-401999 / 408501-410999 / 418000-419999 / 428250-428669 and 430001-432000.

Those who wanted to be Air Gunners went to either WAGS or BAGS whilst pilots went to flying training schools. My believe is that since he was posted to a SFTSwith an aircrew number then he was in training to be a pilot. Am open to correction though.

[Dean]

Also the ORB states that on 21 Dec 42 Course 27 (P) commenced (Junior course A.T.S.)

On 24 Dec 42 it says "Course 27 (P)" then advises that LAC Williams drowned.

I read Course 27 (P) as being the 27th Pilots course to go through.

[gordon]

Dean wrote:

>Any member who enlisted in Victoria and who wanted to be aircrew we allocated numbers between >the following ranges: 400001-401999 / 408501-410999 / 418000-419999 / 428250-428669 and >430001-432000.

Thanks for that. This isn't complete of course as P/O Alan Gawith was 437713 and W/O Robin Walpole 435384 and both were from Victoria. Of course there would have been 44???? and 45???? serial numbers too. Do u have the complete list for the Vics?

As u probably know the first 2 digits were the calendar year.

>Those who wanted to be Air Gunners went to either WAGS or BAGS whilst pilots went to flying >training schools. My believe is that since he was posted to a SFTSwith an aircrew number then he >was in training to be a pilot. Am open to correction though.

Nothing wrong there, it is just that your orginal statement said u could tell he was a student pilot from his serial number. It was SFTS that gave away he was a student.

>His service number indicates he was a student pilot.

Gordon

[darren.crick]

sounds to me like those numbers could be listed on a pdf or page on our website to help people doing research, any chance we can get a complete or close to complete list together?

[Dean]

You are correct it isn't a complete list of Service numbers but I do have a second document which IS more complete (but do you think I can find it?????????).

I'll hunt around and see if I can find it.

Ok, Gordon, you got me on that one. Bad chioce of words. Maybe it should of read "you can tell he was AIRCREW from his service number".

[gordon]

> Ok, Gordon, you got me on that one. Bad chioce of words.

I wasn't out to get u :P

Just thought u had come across something interesting and very helpful but as it turns out, such was not the case. :(

>Maybe it should of read "you can tell he was AIRCREW from his service number".

Er that isn't the case either, but I'm nit picking. However I would love your statement to be true as it would make much of our research a lot easier.

I hope u are able to find that second doco. Would be most helpful.

Gordon

[Rod Farquhar]

Gordon/Dean
Just to muddy the waters a bit.
My cousin, 417512 FSgt Malcolm Payne Air Gunner
Enlisted Adelaide 23-05-1942, but his service No indicates enlisted in 1941???
I checked back through his papers and found he had joined the reserves 18-11-1941 so his No. must have been allocated at that time. He was enlisted as class E5 and the place for his service No, prefixed with an R was left blank.
This slight anomaly may be a bit confusing for someone researching aircrew with only some parts of the information where a service No. did not match up with date of enlistment.
Rod. :huh:

[gordon]

Rod,

You're correct the waters were muddy alot. The example u gave is quite common unfortunately.

Also there appears to have been another smaller sample that muddied the waters more and that was where someone joined in the January but received a number from the previous year. Eg. X joined Jan 1943 but was given a 42????. Alos as if they were trying to use up the numbers allocated. Or perhaps they hadn't been given their new allocation. Not sure...

Anyone able to throw some light on these anomalies?

Gordon

[Brendan Cowan]

Mystery solved folks!

Here is an email that I received yesterday:

Brendan, I was speaking to my neighbour today, just having a casual chat... and he mentioned he was in the airforce. I looked at him with "my look" and I said to him "I want to show you something". I took him to my back yard, thinking he would be very interested in what I have found, and what a story it is. Anyway, I started talking about how i found it, and before I could say three words he blurted out, "Oh, That's Clarance's!". I looked at him again with "my look", and I said, "what do you mean it's Clarance's pot?". He told me the previous owners of the house had this pot Clarance was the previous owner and the pot is his fathers. Clarance passed away a couple years ago, he was in a nursing home 6 months after his wife passed away, and then passed away himself not too long after. Rob ( my now famous next door neighbour ) told me that he knows Clarance's son. He doesn't know his phone number but he knows where he lives.

I thank you very much Brendan for all your help and research. Needless to say, if we ever need to know something, we should look over our fence and ask our neighbour. Sometimes the answer is closer than we think.

I will be printing out our correspondence and I will pass it on. His grandson might not know all the interesting info you found for me.

Thanks again.

One mystery solved!
Take care,
Gwen

Thanks to all of you who helped - especially Gordon & Dean.

The next step is to actually handover the pot.

Cheers

BC