LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Garnet Charles COOPER
Service No: 408202
Born: Sheffield TAS, 12 September 1910
Enlisted in the RAAF: 28 March 1941
Unit: No. 67 Squadron, RAAF Station Laverton VIC
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 67 Squadron Anson aircraft W2261), Bass Strait, 21 June 1943, Aged 32 Years
Buried: Unrecovered
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Garnet E. and Ethel Cooper; husband of Lucile Mary Cooper, of Latrobe, Tasmania. B.A.
Roll of Honour: Unknown
Remembered: Panel 6, Sydney Memorial, Rookwood NSW
Remembered: Panel 103, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
At 1035 hours on 21 June 1943, No. 67 Squadron Avro Anson W2261 operating from Mallacoota VIC made a controlled ditching in Bass Strait. The crew had just finished a convoy escort task and had handed over to the relieving aircraft when W 2261 suffered a near simultaneous double engine failure. The two surviving crew members were rescued by a lifeboat from HMAS Mildura about 15 minutes after the aircraft ditched.
The crew members of W2261 were:
Flight Sergeant Garnet Charles Cooper (408202) (Navigator) Missing
Flight Sergeant Bruce Fawkner Dufty (409097) (Wireless Air Gunner) Slight injured, Later killed in an Aircraft Accident: 4 October 1943
Pilot Officer Alan Edgar Packer (410371) (Pilot) Seriously injured, Discharged from the RAAF: 24 April 1945
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veteran’s Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A9845, 77
Register of War Memorials in New South Wales On-Line
Bibliography:
Wilson, S. (Stewart) Anson, Hudson and Sunderland in Australian Service, Aerospace Publications Weston Creek ACT 2611, 1992