For Flight Lieutenant Smith, who chases the shouting wind.

In a year when Easter celebrations coincide with ANZAC Day, the story of Flight Lieutenant Henry ‘Lacy’ Smith takes on special significance.

Flt-Lt Smith was shot down over Normandy on June 11 1944. Leading a patrol of Spitfires from the RAAF’s 453 Squadron, he was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The plane crash-landed and flipped into the Orne River; Flt-Lt Smith was listed as missing. As his squadron leader put it in a letter to Smith’s family, he was lying in an unknown grave.

For 66 years plane and pilot lay undiscovered, until a low tide in the estuary uncovered the remains last November. The recovery was organised by Brigitte and Fabrice Corbin, who maintain a D-Day museum in the region. It was Mme Corbin’s hope that the young Australian pilot would be properly laid to rest in France. She said, ‘We feel as French people that we owe this to his family. He died for us.’

Just last week, Fl- Lt Smith was buried with full military honours.

His place of rest is Ranville War Graves Cemetery, just a few miles from where he was shot down. Awards bestowed upon him included the War Medal, the Australian Service Medal, the Air Crew Europe Star, the Defence Medal and the 1939-1945 Star. (Photo from the gallery of Veteran Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon. Click on the image to visit.)

Australians have fought in many foreign wars. The cynical inner voice says that they went off to seek excitement. Feeling deprived, or perhaps ashamed that our own independence came without bloodshed. No doubt there was some element of adventure-seeking. But when the time came to face the enemy, Henry Smith and his modern brothers in arms met the challenge.

Speaking at the ceremony, Flt-Lt Smith’s surviving relatives were thankful that their long-lost great uncle was now at rest in a proper grave. His headstone quotes the opening lines of “High Flight”, written by John Magee.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

This is the day we honour those who died in battle. We remember the sacrifice made for us by people who never knew us.

Lest we forget.