Flying Officer Donald Featherstone, 1943 By Renee Loeckenhoff
My interest in mapping the burials of war veterans in the Wonthaggi Cemetery started with my dad. After learning his story, I was encouraged to dig deeper into the records of other veterans buried there.
My father, Donald John Featherstone, was born in West Melbourne in 1921. He had three younger siblings, Ivy, Keith and Jean.
Donald was dux of Moonee Ponds Central School in 1932. At high school, he excelled in maths and also worked in a wool shed as a wool classer to help support the family.
When his father died in 1938, at the age of 17 Donald became responsible for supporting his mother and two sisters. (His brother Keith was in Kew Mental Hospital.) He had wanted to be an accountant but he could not afford to go to university.
My interest in mapping the burials of war veterans in the Wonthaggi Cemetery started with my dad. After learning his story, I was encouraged to dig deeper into the records of other veterans buried there.
My father, Donald John Featherstone, was born in West Melbourne in 1921. He had three younger siblings, Ivy, Keith and Jean.
Donald was dux of Moonee Ponds Central School in 1932. At high school, he excelled in maths and also worked in a wool shed as a wool classer to help support the family.
When his father died in 1938, at the age of 17 Donald became responsible for supporting his mother and two sisters. (His brother Keith was in Kew Mental Hospital.) He had wanted to be an accountant but he could not afford to go to university.
When he finished high school he joined the Citizens Military Force, a part-time home defence army, at Moonee Ponds.
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On September 3, 1939, Australia’s Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced that Australia had joined Great Britain in declaring war on Nazi Germany. Three weeks later, on September 25, aged 18, Donald joined the Royal Australian Artillery Regiment, before transferring to the Permanent Military Forces on the Mornington Peninsula. Following his discharge on November 5,1942, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force.
From basic training at Bradfield Park, Sydney, he was sent abroad to the Brandon Empire Air Training Scheme, in Winnipeg, Canada, where he trained with other Australian and New Zealand airmen under Thomas Gordon Blakely, a renowned Canadian-Irish airman who had built his own plane and flown it across Canada. |
Wonthaggi Cemetery,
Veteran’s Grave Directory Renee Loeckenhoff has so far identified 694 veterans buried in the Wonthaggi Cemetery. Each veteran has a personal profile with information about their service, public notices of their death and photos of the grave site. The project was supported by the Wonthaggi RSL and the directory can be consulted at the Wonthaggi Museum. |
There Donald met my mother Francis – Thomas Blakely’s daughter. They married on November 3, 1943, and she came to Australia as a war bride after the war.
Don and Francis Featherstone on their wedding day, November 3, 1943, with Francis’s parents
Irene and Thomas Blakely.
Irene and Thomas Blakely.
From Winnipeg, my dad travelled across Canada and boarded a ship to West Freugh in Scotland, then on to England where he served with the 90, 242 and 466 RAF squadrons in Lancasters and Stirlings. His nickname was “Miska”. He became a flying officer in the field and won the Distinguished Flying Cross for skill and fortitude in operations against the enemy.
He arrived back in Melbourne on January 4, 1946, after serving 32 months abroad, and my mother joined him shortly afterwards. The married couple lived with Donald’s mother and two sisters in West Melbourne. Struggling to find work in Melbourne, he decided to move to Wonthaggi for an adventure shortly after my brother was born.
Their first house was where the Haymes Paint Shop is now, then when I was born we moved to Wentworth Road.
Their first house was where the Haymes Paint Shop is now, then when I was born we moved to Wentworth Road.
Dad got a job in the State Coal Mine. He also worked in the butter factories at Poowong and Archies Creek, and helped his friend Des Bingham on his dairy farm at Loch, repairing fences and picking and bagging potatoes. As a child, I loved tagging along with him.
Like many veterans, Dad carried the war home with him. I remember him running lap after lap around what is now the football oval, seeking solitude and a way to quiet his mind. Today we'd recognise it as post-traumatic stress disorder, but little was understood about it then.
He was one of the many men who helped to build the Wonthaggi RSL building. He was secretary of the RSL and used to bike around town and hand deliver notices to save the postage money.
Dad was working as a shiftman in the mine when he was killed by a large rock fall in Shaft 20 on July 12 1955.
Like many veterans, Dad carried the war home with him. I remember him running lap after lap around what is now the football oval, seeking solitude and a way to quiet his mind. Today we'd recognise it as post-traumatic stress disorder, but little was understood about it then.
He was one of the many men who helped to build the Wonthaggi RSL building. He was secretary of the RSL and used to bike around town and hand deliver notices to save the postage money.
Dad was working as a shiftman in the mine when he was killed by a large rock fall in Shaft 20 on July 12 1955.
Don Featherstone’s brevet from his RAF uniform has been gifted to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
My dad never got to be a remembered veteran in the Wonthaggi community like a lot of others did. His cremated remains were buried in the Springvale Cemetery but later I moved them to Wonthaggi, so I could visit him often.
Learning more about his dedication to his family and country really encouraged me to locate other veterans in the Wonthaggi Cemetery. It has been – and still is – a labour of love for me to map their graves and record what I can of their stories.
There are over 700 veterans in the cemetery, and still counting, dating from the American Civil War right through to recent conflicts, plus 17 prisoners of war. Some of the graves are very old and disintegrating, as families have moved away or there is an end to that generation’s bloodline.
Many of these veterans went to hell and back. Some returned with life-changing injuries, others lost their families because no one understood about PTSD. Many died young. Their stories deserve to be remembered. I'm determined that not one serviceman or woman buried in Wonthaggi Cemetery will be forgotten.
Learning more about his dedication to his family and country really encouraged me to locate other veterans in the Wonthaggi Cemetery. It has been – and still is – a labour of love for me to map their graves and record what I can of their stories.
There are over 700 veterans in the cemetery, and still counting, dating from the American Civil War right through to recent conflicts, plus 17 prisoners of war. Some of the graves are very old and disintegrating, as families have moved away or there is an end to that generation’s bloodline.
Many of these veterans went to hell and back. Some returned with life-changing injuries, others lost their families because no one understood about PTSD. Many died young. Their stories deserve to be remembered. I'm determined that not one serviceman or woman buried in Wonthaggi Cemetery will be forgotten.