Glenbrook resident Pam Thompson, 90, will never forget watching as a plane "roared down from the sky" and crashed, killing five RAAF officers.
It was summer school holidays 1941 and Mrs Thompson, then aged 12, was playing in the backyard with her sister.
She saw the aircraft fall “closer and closer and lower and lower”.
She told of how, in an instant, it burst into flames, leaving a tower of black smoke and a hanging smell of loss which never left her home.
“It was something you wouldn’t want to see," she said. "It cracked the concrete, it smelt for a while, I had to walk another way home from school to avoid the smell.”
On Tuesday, January 28, 1941 at approximately 4:45pm, the Arvo Anson aircraft, nicknamed “Faithful Annie”, crashed.
It had left Parkes bound for Sydney on a mercy flight. On board was seriously ill flying officer Bailey Sawyer, 34, who needed urgent attention for a life-threatening ear infection.
He was accompanied by four other RAAF officers: pilot officer John Newman, 25, squadron leader James Rainbow, 42, flying officer Henry Skillman, 30, and aircraftsman Charles Tyson, 23.
Two-and-a-half hours after they left, parts of the port wing fell across Glenbrook and Faithful Annie plummeted from the sky at the corner of Clifton Avenue and Lucasville Road.
Five unused parachutes were found with the wreckage.
Also looking on was Tim Meers. Now 89, he watched the crash from his kitchen window with his mother.
Mr Meers recalled the day as “clear as a bell… The roar came hard and fast as it dropped altitude… I raced out to the front porch and could see black smoke.”
He was 11 at the time and his mother would not allow him near the crash site but he traced his own flight path to investigate.
Some 640 metres west of his home, he discovered parts of the port wing covered in battered fabric. He tried to return the pieces to Richmond RAAF officers. He was praised for his adventurer skills as a boy and told not to worry.
“I believe they tried to cover it up,” said Mr Meers.
At the time of incident, the RAAF put the fault down to pilot error. But a coroner, Mr E.F. Rule, concluded: “I am unable to say what caused the crash, and would not say that any fault was due to the pilot whilst the machine was under his care.”
Mrs Thompson hoped that the officers were remembered.
“History gets lost, people die, move away and stories just go with them,” she said.
The Glenbrook and District Historical Society will ensure the memories live on with a plaque in Glenbrook.
