Horace William Hammond ARMSTRONG
Year of Birth: 1907
Place of Birth: York, Western Australia
Date of Enlistment: 21 December 1940, Claremont, Western Australia
Australian Defence Force: Australian Imperial Force
Rank: Lieutenant
Unit(s): 157 General Transport Company, Australian Army Service Corps
Service Number: WX10534
Died: 7 September 1944
Age: 32 years
Buried: Cairns War Cemetery – Plot A – Row E – Grave 1
Horace’s father, Harry George Armstrong, an engineer, was born in South Australia 8 January 1883 and moved to Western Australia where he married in 1910 Alice Jane Hubble. Harry joined the Western Australian Bushmen and fought in Africa during the Boer War. He also served in the Great War as Lance-Corporal, No 4298 with the 12/2 Pioneer Battalion in France.
They had 5 children, Fred born 1910, then Horace born 8 January 1911, Harry born 1913, Maurice 1914 and Ronald 1916. Later Molly Rowena, William and Julie were born. Before World War II, four of their sons were members of the Western Australian 28th Battalion. In 1937 one of these men, Ronald Hammond Montgomery Armstrong, 20 years of age, was killed in an accident. Frederick Henry Montgomery Armstrong WX32619, Maurice Edgar Montgomery Armstrong WX27609, Harry George Montgomery Armstrong WX401 and Horace served in the Australian Imperial Force [A.I.F.]
Horace married Dorothy May Elkington in 1935. They had three boys Ken, Ron and Peter. He worked as a carpenter before turning to being a truck driver.
Horace first enlisted in August 1940 and was assigned to Transport Training Depot before being discharged and enlisting in A.I.F. and serving in the Australian Army Service Corps [A.A.S.C.]. On his enlistment they were living at Victoria Park, Perth with his occupation listed as Cartage Contractor.
Lieutenant Horace Armstrong was one of 20 people on a Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force C-47 Dakota when it left Merauka air base, Dutch New Guinea Thursday 7 September 1944 bound for Cairns, a flight that usually took about four hours. Of the 20 people he was one of two Australians on board.
The C-47 Dakota DT9-41 of the 1 N.E.I.T.S. [Netherlands East Indies Transport Service], was on the return leg of a regular twice a week route to Merauke from Melbourne via Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns. It was a four day round-trip with overnight stays in Brisbane and Merauke.
They were experiencing bad weather as they approached Cairns in the late afternoon. The crew radioed they would be landing in 10 minutes at Cairns but nothing more was heard from them. It was believed the plane crashed into the sea during bad weather that evening.
An extensive search for the missing plane was undertaken by the Air Force over the sea and land, and were supported by the army, police, and scores of civilians in remote areas. No trace of the plane could be found, and the search was called off after three weeks by the Dutch authorities.
The following year in 1945 there were many memorial notices in the newspapers.
Wreckage of the plane was discovered 45 years later in January 1989 by seven members of the Australian New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society (ANZSES) when they were collecting plant specimens on the mountain peaks north-west of Mossman, North Queensland.
They contacted Air Force officials in Canberra about their find. The registration markings still visible on the tail confirmed it was the missing plane.
News of the discovery was sent to The Hague in the Netherlands and so began the difficult task of tracking down and notifying the next of kin.
Permission was given on Tuesday 24 January 1989 for a recovery mission to retrieve the remains of the passengers and the many personal items from amongst the crash debris. Access to the site was only accessible by helicopter. The operation was conducted by No. 27 Squadron with the helicopter support from No. 35 Squadron, Townsville. The mission concluded on Saturday 11 February 1989.
On Saturday 29 July 1989 the remains of the 20 crash victims were laid to rest together in a large single grave in the Cairns War Cemetery with full Military Honours.
The armed honour guard at the monument consisted of special units of the Australian land, air and naval forces.
Relatives, especially from America, Netherlands and Australia that had travelled to Cairns, were highly impressed with the ceremony.
In 1993 all were registered in the Queensland Birth Death and Marriage register with the death recorded as 7 September 1944.
Online Resources
NAA: B883, (ARMSTRONG Horace) National Archives of Australia
National Library of Australia: Trove Digitised Newspapers
Queensland Registrar of Births Deaths & Marriages
Western Australia Birth, Deaths and Marriages Indexes
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Department of Veterans’ Affairs
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