On the morning of March 7, 1942, a flight of ten Curtiss P40E Kittyhawks left Bankstown aerodrome for Archerfield, Brisbane.
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They were part of a consignment of 25 planes which would make up the new RAAF 75th Squadron intended to counter the growing Japanese threat to Australia. Due to poor weather conditions on the NSW North Coast, only five planes reached their destination that day.
Two were forced to land at Evans Head reaching Brisbane the following day, whilst three planes crashed, two of these with fatal results for their pilots. Killed were Pilot Officer James Norton who crashed near Wauchope and Pilot Officer Lloyd Holliday, who lost his life at Collombatti after earlier witnessing Norton's fiery end.
Lloyd Holliday was born on 7 June 1918 in Sydney and attended Shore Grammar School before taking up a position with Sydney radio station 2UW.
Whilst there, he met and became engaged to Lorraine Bedford-Wood. In 1940, Lloyd enlisted in the RAAF and during his first granted leave married Lorraine at St Giles' Church, Greenwich in July 1941. In January 1942, Lloyd received his commission as Pilot Officer.
Len Baker was in his truck doing a milk run at Collombatti on the afternoon of 7 March 1942, when he heard a plane in trouble and saw Lloyd's aircraft with black smoke coming from it. He drove to the crash scene where he joined a local farmer Wes Brenton at the site of the burning aircraft. Nothing could be done for the pilot whose parachute had deployed too late to save him.
Having heard the report of the plane crash, Sergeant Thomas Turner went to the crash site in William Saul's paddock, accompanied by Constables Baxter and McNeil and followed by Kempsey District Ambulance. A guard was placed over the wreckage until an RAAF crew arrived to salvage what they could.
Lloyd was buried at Northern Suburbs cemetery in Sydney on 10 March 1942 after the memorial service at the same Church where he and his bride had been so happy just a few months before. He was just twenty-three years old at the time of his death.
About twelve months ago, Anthony Koch of Mildura 2 OTU Heritage Museum contacted myself and others in Kempsey with a view to holding a memorial service for Pilot Officer Holliday on the 78th anniversary of his tragic death. Len Baker's son Glen had been able to identify the crash site off Spooners Avenue, Collombatti which his father had pointed out to him many times during duck hunting trips to nearby Trial Bay Creek.
Anthony had been in contact with relatives of Lloyd and the planning finally came to fruition on Saturday 7 March 2020 when a memorial plaque near the crash site was dedicated by the Rev Helen Holliday, from the Holliday family.
Other members of the Holliday family from England, New Zealand, Taree and Sydney attended along with Wing Commander Peter Robinson of RAAF 75 Squadron who unveiled the Memorial Plaque. Macleay Valley Air Force Cadets and Kempsey-Macleay RSL Sub-Branch members were also in attendance. A fitting tribute to a young man taken too soon in service to his country.
