LEST WE FORGET
Flying Officer Herbert Elgar MOFFLIN
Service No: 436087
Born: Perth WA, 3 November 1923
Enlisted in the RAAF: 7 November 1942
Unit: No. 1 Operational Training Unit, East Sale VIC
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 1 Operational Training Unit Beaufort aircraft A9-587), East Sale, 2 July 1945, Aged 21 Years
Buried: Sale War Cemetery VIC
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Horace Elgar and Alice Maude Mofflin, of Mt. Lawley, Western Australia.
Roll of Honour: Mount Lawley WA
Remembered: Panel 112, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Remembered: Cenotaph Undercroft, State War Memorial, Kings Park WA
On 2 July, Beaufort A9-587 crashed into a paddock several hundred yards beyond the duty pilots’ tower. The tip of the Beaufort’s airscrew had snapped off and flew into the cockpit and the two crew members died when the aeroplane hit the ground and caught fire.
Extract from Lax, M. (Mark) (editor) Always Ready: a history of RAAF East Sale, RAAF Publications Unit Melbourne VIC, 1993 – Page 43
The two crew members of A9-587 were:
Flight Lieutenant Dudley Reginald Atkins DFC (413940) (Pilot)
Flying Officer Herbert Elgar Mofflin (436087) (Second Pilot)
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, 262
Bibliography:
Wilson, S. (Stewart) Beaufort, Beaufighter and Mosquito in Australian Service, Aerospace Publications Weston Creek ACT 2611, 1990 (SLWA)