Death On Operations
p. 12 · Read in the full issue
Presumed
NEWS has recently been received of the death, while on operations, of Flying-Officer Bryan Francis Law ler, formerly of the Post Office staff in Rabaul, New Guinea. This young man was well known to many Territorians and took a prominent part in the sporting and social life of the town. Early in the war he came South to enlist in the RAAF, and was serving in the Mediterranean theatre of operations when he died.
It appears that early in the morning of April 8, 1944, the aircraft in which he was flying was shot down while about 20 miles from the coast of Gorgona Island (off Italy). The crew of six took to the rubber dinghy, which drifted for some days, and eventually the men became so weak from exposure and starvation that four of them (of whom Flying-Officer Lawler was one) fell off and were seen no more. Two of the crew finally man aged to reach the island.