General News
15 May, 2024
Obituary: Harvey Hayward Bawden
Harvey Hayward Bawden: 26.06.1924-17.04.2024 ONE of the Loddon’s last surviving World War Two veterans Harvey Bawden has passed away in his 99th year. The former Royal Australian Air Force warrant officer farmed at Pyramid Hill for 50 years before...
Harvey Hayward Bawden:
26.06.1924-17.04.2024
ONE of the Loddon’s last surviving World War Two veterans Harvey Bawden has passed away in his 99th year.
The former Royal Australian Air Force warrant officer farmed at Pyramid Hill for 50 years before retiring to Bendigo and later moved to Shepparton.
Originally from Pyramid Hill, he enlisted at Bendigo in 1942.
After initial training school and assessment as an air gunner, he was shipped to England for training on heavy bombers, his first posting was to 153 Squadron at RAF Scampton, from where he flew four operations.
He was then posted to 150 Squadron at RAF Hemswell. On their 29th operation late in the war, a mission to bomb the heavily defended synthetic oil plant at Harpenerweg in the Ruhr Valley. Germany, they were hit by flak.
The plane nose-dived with flames coming from its engines. With the hydraulics gone Harvey could not manually open his Perspex turret, but managed to drop back into the body of the plane. With his leg broken near the hip, he was the last to bail out of the crashing plane.
Four of the crew were beaten to death and buried by the mob. Harvey’s life was saved by two elderly people who fought off the crowd and stood over him with a rifle and loaded him into a wheelbarrow. They delivered him to a nearby police station.
Harvey spent weeks with little food in a building housing wounded German, Russian and several allied soldiers and was later found by US soldiers without a uniform and a seriously infected broken leg.
He was repatriated to a US mobile hospital and later Britain before spending months in the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital on his return to Australia.
He proposed to his sweetheart Nance and finally returned to Mincha to his family farm, where despite his calipered leg he successfully and joyfully farmed for the next 50 years, raising four children and serving as a pillar of the veteran and local community.