Richard Ashley Atkinson

Wing Commander Richard Ashley Atkinson, DSO, DFC and Bar (service number 70030), was born on 21 May 1913 at Emmaville, New South Wales, the son of an English mine manager, and was educated at The King’s School, Parramatta, before taking an engineering degree at Imperial College in London and working as a mining engineer; he had learned to fly with the RAF reserve and was mobilised at the outbreak of war. He served first in the Far East with long-range reconnaissance flying-boat units and on attachment to RAAF squadrons in Australia, flying Catalinas, and won his early gallantry awards in that theatre — the DFC recognising his steadiness when his aircraft was attacked by Japanese fighters over the waters north of Singapore, and the DSO for sustained determination over a long period of operational flying. By 1944 he had returned to Britain to fly de Havilland Mosquitoes with Coastal Command’s anti-shipping strike wing, commanding No. 248 Squadron and then No. 235 Squadron at RAF Banff in Scotland. He proved an outstanding strike leader against German shipping off Norway, leading the attacks in which two merchant vessels were sunk in September 1944 and pressing home further assaults on barges, tugs and escort vessels in the face of heavy flak — actions for which he was awarded a Bar to his DFC. On 13 December 1944, leading a large Mosquito strike force against enemy shipping in a Norwegian fjord, his aircraft (Mosquito HR114) was hit by anti-aircraft fire over the target; the starboard wing broke away and the machine rolled over and crashed into the sea. His body was never recovered, and he is commemorated on Panel 200 of the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey, as well as on the Commemorative Roll of the Australian War Memorial.