Allyn Clive Douglass

Allyn Clive Douglass (service number 404374) was an Australian airman of the Royal Australian Air Force, the son of William and Ruby Beatrice Douglass of Sandgate, New South Wales. He served as an observer (navigator) with No. 105 Squadron, a Pathfinder unit flying de Havilland Mosquitoes, and flew a large number of sorties during the Battle of the Ruhr in 1943. Having already been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order, gazetted on 21 January 1944 (London Gazette, Issue 36346, p. 481), the citation praising his exceptional skill, leadership and his part in the successes achieved over the Ruhr. By then an acting squadron leader, he returned to Australia and was serving on the staff of an Operational Training Unit when he was killed on 29 April 1944, aged 25, in the crash of an Airspeed Oxford (LW999) near Wallan, Victoria, during a non-operational flight in which all aboard died. He is buried in Springvale War Cemetery, Melbourne (grave reference 1.P.B.12).