LEST WE FORGET
Flight Lieutenant Elwyn Derek CRISP
Service No: 267519
Born: Date, Location unavailable
Enlisted in the RAAF Reserve: Date unavailable
Unit: RAAF Reserve, Civil Aircrew
Died: Aircraft Accident (W R Carpenter Airlines Lockheed 14 aircraft (Carmania)), Cairns QLD, 14 February 1942, Age unavailable
Buried: Northern Suburbs General Cemetery, NSW
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Ernest Thomas Crisp and Amy Kezia Crisp; husband of Betty Stewart Crisp, of Northbridge
Roll of Honour: Unknown
Remembered: Panel 134, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Remembered: NSW Memorial not specified
On 14 February 1942, Flight Lieutenant Crisp (267519) was killed when Carmania crashed a few minutes after take off from Cairns aerodrome bound for New Guinea. The cause of the crash was unknown. Co-Pilot Flying Officer Clive Robert Bernard (268072), the only other person on board, was also killed in the crash.
Flight Lieutenant Crisp was a commercial air Pilot employed by W R Carpenter Airlines Ltd as a Senior Captain, and was in charge of a plane engaged in a series of flights from Cairns to Port Moresby under the directions given to the Company by the Civil Aviation Department to proceed to Port Moresby to continue the evacuation from the Morobe district of Port Moresby. He had made several such flights from Cairns to New Guinea prior to 14 February 1942.
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veterans’ Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/8/180
Register of War Memorials in New South Wales On-Line
Sinclair, J. (James) Wings of Gold: How the aeroplane developed New Guinea, Pacific Publications Sydney, 1978