Lieutenant Horace William Hammond Armstrong
- Rank
- Lieutenant
- Service number
- WX10534
- Unit
- 157 General Transport Company
- Cause of death
- Killed on Service
- Place of death
- Mossman, Queensland
- Date of death
- 7 September 1944
- Age
- 33
- Plaque number
- L380A
- Co-located plaques
- L380 - FLTLT Robert Milne
- Dedicated by
- Friend on 14 December 2024
- More information
Biography presented during plaque dedication:
Horace William Hammond Armstrong was born 8 January 1911 at York, Western Australia to parents Harry George Armstrong and Alice Jane Hubble. There were five children from the marriage.
Horace’s father joined the Western Australian Bushmen and fought during the Boer War in Africa, also serving in the Great War. In 1935, Horace married Dorothy May Elkington and they had three sons. Horace worked as a carpenter and a truck driver.
Horace first enlisted into the Citizen Military Force (CMF) in August 1940 assigned to a Transport Training Depot. He was discharged from the CMF, enlisting into the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in December 1940.
He was originally attached to 2/4 Machine Gun Battalion, before being transferred to the Service Corps. At the time of enlistment, he was living in Victoria Park working as a cartage contractor.
On 7 September 1944, Horace was a passenger with twenty other people on a Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force Dakota C47 aircraft departing Merauka air base in Dutch New Guinea bound for Cairns. It was in the late afternoon the Dakota was on approach to Cairns and experiencing bad weather when it radioed the tower stating they would be landing in 10 minutes. No further radio communication was heard from the Dakota.
With the aircraft overdue, it was believed the Dakota had crashed into the sea off Cairns. An extensive search was conducted and with no trace of the plane located, the search was called off after three weeks.
It was not until 45 years later in January 1989 that an expedition from the Australian New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society collecting plant specimens on mountain peaks north-west of Mossman, Queensland located the aircraft wreckage. A recovery mission was conducted to retrieve the remains of the twenty passengers along with many personal items amongst the Dakota crash debris. On 29 July 1989, the remains of the twenty crash victims were laid to rest in a large single grave in the Cairns War Cemetery.
Lieutenant Horace William Hammond Armstrong, service number WX10534 of 157 General Transport Company, was killed on service on 7 September 1944. He was 33 years of age.
His plaque is placed alongside that of Flight Lieutenant Robert Milne who also passed away in an aircraft accident.