Frank Leslie Herbert Eddison

Frank Leslie Herbert Eddison (service number 39377) was an Australian airman who grew up on a family farm in Canberra’s Woden Valley, attending Queanbeyan Public School and Canberra Grammar School before joining the Palestine Police as a mounted officer in 1934. He left Palestine in 1936 to train with the Royal Air Force, receiving his commission as a Pilot Officer in January 1937, and by the early years of the war had risen to the acting rank of Squadron Leader with No. 214 Squadron, flying Vickers Wellington bombers from bases in England. Over the course of his operational tour he led his crews on bombing raids against targets including Brest harbour, Eindhoven airfield, and Hamburg, and was recognised for the enthusiasm and steadiness with which he set an example to those around him. In the early hours of 9 May 1941 he was piloting Wellington Mk IC R1226 on a night sortie when the aircraft was intercepted and shot down by a German night fighter over Breezand in North Holland; Eddison and all five members of his crew were killed. His Distinguished Flying Cross was gazetted posthumously on 13 March 1942 (London Gazette, Issue 35486). He was initially buried at Huisduinen near Den Helder and after the Liberation was reinterred at Bergen-op-Zoom War Cemetery in the Netherlands, where he lies in a collective grave alongside his crew.