LEST WE FORGET
Second Lieutenant Alan Alexander WILSON-WALKER
From Australia serving in the Royal Flying Corps
Service No: 249 (Australian Army)
Born: Woollahra NSW, June 1893
Enlisted in the Army: 17 October 1914
Unit: 13th Reserve Squadron, Royal Flying Corps
Died: Aircraft Accident, Dover, 20 March 1916, Aged 22 Years
Buried: Dover (St. James’s) Cemetery, Kent
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Mrs. Charles Wilson-Walker, of Pymble, Sydney, New South Wales
Remembered: Commemorative Roll, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Brother of Driver William Douglas Wilson-Walker (7162), Died of Wounds: 18 July 1916, at Armentieres, France
On 6 December 1915, Second Lieutenant Wilson-Walker resigned from the Australian Army and accepted a Commission in the British Army.
On 20 March 1916, Second Lieutenant Wilson-Walker was killed in an aircraft accident at Dover. The evidence presented in Coroner’s Report was that the deceased officer was returning from a cross-country flight, and was seen near the Dover end of the Guston tunnel to be flying at a dangerously slow speed and then to turn. The machine sideslipped and nose-dived 1,500 feet, striking the ground and smashing to pieces. The deceased was found strapped in the machine dead, his spine being fractured, skull fractured, and both legs and one arm broken.
References:
Australian War Memorial Commemorative Roll On-Line Records
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record B2455, WILSON-WALKER A A
National Archives UK RAF Casualty Card 289529, 311469