LEST WE FORGET
Sergeant Joseph LOCKHART
Service No: 401041
Born: Morwell VIC, 24 May 1918
Enlisted in the RAAF: 8 December 1940
Unit: No. 36 Squadron (RAF)
Died: Air Operations: (No. 36 Squadron Vildebeest aircraft K4168), Malaya, 26 January 1942, Aged 23 Years
Buried: Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Joseph and Alice Maria Lockhart; husband of Alice Myfanwy Doris Lockhart, of Trentham, Victoria, Australia
Roll of Honour: Goodnight NSW
Remembered: Panel 125, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
On 26 January 1942 Vilderbeest K4168 together with other aircraft from the Squadron was engaged in an attack on a Japanese invasion fleet near Endau, Malaya and it failed to return to base. In April 1946 a British search party found the wreck of the aircraft near Mersing which is on the east coast of Malaya, about 80 miles north of Singapore and 25 miles from Endau. In 1954 a letter to relatives advised that it appeared that the aircraft had been shot down by enemy aircraft, all the crew members had been killed and the remains of Sergeant Lockhart recovered.
The crew members of K4168 were:
Sergeant Bernard Vernon Harris (755290) (RAFVR) (Observer)
Sergeant Joseph Lockhart (401041) (Wireless Air Gunner)
Flight Lieutenant George Sydney Richardson MID (40017) (RAF) (Pilot)
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, 163/139/100