#raaf

2 incidents tagged

Ross Gregory Killed in RAF Wellington Crash — Bengal, June 1942

Victoria / Australia (cricket); RAF 215 Squadron (military)

1942-06-10

Pilot Officer Ross Gregory of the Royal Australian Air Force, attached to RAF 215 Squadron, was killed on 10 June 1942 when the Wellington bomber on which he was the observer exploded in mid-air near Gafargaon in the Mymensingh district of Bengal. Gregory had played two Tests for Australia in 1937 and was widely tipped to be a long-term replacement for Bradman in the middle order. He is the only Test cricketer to die in active service in Asia, and his death — alongside those of Farnes, Verity and Turnbull — became part of the running ledger of cricketers lost to the war.

#ross-gregory#wwii#australia

⭐Serious

Bradman Invalided Out — Fibrositis Ends His War, June 1941

Royal Australian Air Force / Australian Imperial Force (Bradman)

1941-06-30

Don Bradman, Australia's captain and the world's most famous cricketer, was invalided out of military service on 30 June 1941 with chronic fibrositis. He had enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in June 1940, transferred to the Army School of Physical Training at Frankston, and within months was so debilitated by muscular pain in his back and right arm that he could not shave himself or comb his hair. The discharge — barely reported at the time under wartime censorship — kept him out of cricket for almost five years and shaped the legend of his post-war return.

#bradman#raaf#aif