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Location:
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Biddlecombe Avenue, Corio, GREATER GEELONG CITY, 3214
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Local Government Area:
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GREATER GEELONG CITY
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Heritage Type:
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Memorial Artwork, Window
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Description:
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Subject
S.W. Pacific
Text
Strength: Whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Inscription
Killed on active service Air Operations Millingimbi 20th Ap.1943 Pilot Officer William J.H. Gove No.2. Squadron R.A.A.F.
Description & History
Made in the same style as all the aisle windows, this design incorporated a small elephant to symbolise 'Strength', trunk upraised and standing beside a fallen column; the text was taken from Matthew 16: 24-26.
Pilot Officer William Julius Henderson Gove, son of Squadron Leader R.V. Gove, had only been promoted from Flight Sergeant on 1 April 1943, three weeks before he died. The squadron was flying from Darwin to armed reconnaissance of Timoeka, Dutch New Guinea when it is thought that two planes may have accidently clipped each other as they took up flight formation, only four minutes into the flight. All lives were lost on both planes. Men fromGove's Hudson were buried together on Rabuma Island on 26 April 1943 and later reburied at Adelaide River War Cemetery; the plaque on Pilot Officer Gove's grave has a shortened version of the text on this window. The Air Force elected to name a landing strip near Melville Bay in the north west after Pilot Officer Gove to perpetuate his memory.
References & Acknowledgements
NAA: A705, 166/16/72; James Affleck, Geelong Grammarians at World War Two, The Old Geelong Grammarians Incorporated, Corio, 2002, p.30; The Corian, May and August 1943; http://www.adelaideriverwargraves.com/gove.htm
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Year Construction Ended:
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1944
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Conflicts Commemorated:
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Second World War 1939-45
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Designers/Architects:
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Waller, Christian
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Waller, Mervyn Napier (attributed)
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