There is an excellent overview of the suburb of Petersham, NSW on Wikipedia. It includes a brief reference to Petersham Public School.
The day World War II came to Petersham Public School, NSW
On Wednesday 2 May 1945 at approximately 11.30am a Mosquito aircraft of the Royal Air Force 618 Squadron exploded in the skies over Petersham. Flight Lieutenant David George Rochford, RAF Volunteer Reserve and Leading Aircraftman Charles Broughton Boydell, Royal Australian Air Force, were killed in the crash. Neither man’s parachute opened at a sufficient height for them to survive. Both of the men were aged 25 years.
The body of Flight Lieutenant Rochford fell into the playground of the then Petersham Public School, now the West St Campus of Petersham College.
Leading Aircraftman Boydell’s body was recovered from the top of a shed over 100 metres away in the Petersham railway goods yard.
Blazing sections of the wooden aircraft were scattered across Petersham and as far away as Catherine Street in Leichhardt. Houses were set alight in Trafalgar Street, The Avenue, Searl Street and Railway Street, Petersham.
A Court of Inquiry was convened on 4 May 1945. It was hampered by the fact that many pieces of the wreckage were recovered by civilians and kept as souvenirs.
In 1966 a memorial garden was dedicated to Flight Lieutenant Rochford and Leading Aircraftman Boydell in the grounds of what was then Petersham Girls High School. A plaque, silky oak trees and a flagpole were placed there in their memory.
In 1989 the site became part of Petersham College. In 1995 the NSW Branch and Petersham Sub Branch of the RSL and Petersham College held a service to mark the 50th anniversary of the crash under the Australia Remembers program. Florence Bell, with the assistance of other people including Petersham College staff, became involved in subsequent services.
On 2 May 2005, the 60th anniversary of the tragedy, a commemorative ceremony was held in Petersham Town Hall to honour the memory of Flight Lieutenant David George Rochford and Leading Aircraftman Charles Broughton Boydell. Unfortunately, by this time the silky oak trees planted in 1966 were dying and needed to be replaced. Petersham College asked the Boydell and Rochford families for their choice of replacement trees – the families chose tibouchinas.
Florence Bell was a fifth class student in Miss Webb’s class on the day of the air crash and she has donated a significant collection to the History/Archive Centre. Examples of the material which Florence has donated include the 1966 program of the dedication of the Memorial Garden, material and photographs on the 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 Memorial Services and letters from participants.
Letters from relatives of Flight Lieutenant David Rochford and Leading Aircraftman Charles Boydell are also included in the collection. Newspaper articles and other published articles on the crash add to the historical importance of the collection. The Florence Bell Collection is available for viewing at Petersham Town Hall.
Welcome to the Peto Public blog!
G’day girls and boys
This blog is designed to encourage people who were at Petersham Public School in the class that would have started Kindergarten in 1956 and finished 6th Class in 1963.
Some people were at Peto for 8 years. Others would have come and went for only some of those years. The common thing is we would all have been under the eye of Harry Baltins as the scary disciplinarian! 😉
Petersham Public School 