Since the centenary of WWI each Anzac Day ceremony has honoured one of ‘Gulgong’s sons’, this year was Flight Sergeant Barry Alan Croft.

He was born in Gulgong in 1923 and grew up to be a farmer and grazier and worked on the family farm at Tallawang prior to his enlistment. 

Croft was killed in action on D-Day (June 6, 1944) while flying with 299 Squadron Royal Air Force, carrying the paratroopers and towing the gliders of the British 6^th Airborne Division to their landing zones in Normandy.

He was one of the first Australians killed in the operation, which was the first major step in the liberation of Western Europe from Nazism and fascism. And a pivotal event not only in the war but in the history of the world.

Speaking on behalf of the family, David Croft said, “Barry’s death had a profound effect on his parents and our father Jim. I believe his mother still expected him to walk in the door right up until the day she died”.

And spoke of a “whiz with electronics” growing up, long before becoming a navigator and radio operator.

In his address guest speaker at the ceremony, Lt Col James R Sinclair RFD, said his father served in the Air Force during WWII and spoke about the high casualty rate of those who fought in the air.

“While fewer than two per cent of all Australians who enlisted in WWII fought in Bomber Command, they constituted 20 per cent of all deaths in combat,” he said.

“Of the 10,000 Australians who served with Bomber Command 3,486 were killed and 265 were injured and in addition to that an unspecified number were shot down and became prisoners of war.

“That works out to a casualty rate of 37 per cent, only German U-boat crews suffered a higher rate in WWII.

“It wasn’t just operations that were risky, losses in training were very high, my father told me that in early 1942 seven of his friends were killed in a 10-day period while they attempted to convert from flying single-engine to twin-engine aircraft.

“So the question is, ‘given how dangerous this was why did people volunteer to do it?’

“The answer was simple; in 1939 flying was a very glamorous activity, it was only 12 years since Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic, and at the time pilots and aircrew were afforded the status of astronauts today.

“And as a result many young Australians jumped at the chance to become; a pilot; a navigator; a gunner; or a wireless operator.”