Today is the 80th anniversary of the death of Leading Aircraftman Douglas Mervyn Lord, age 22, of the Royal Australian Air Force. He is one of 146 Australian airmen commemorated in Canada.
The crash, which killed him while practising night flying out of No 2 Flying Training School, Uplands, Ottawa, occurred at 4 am about 2-1/2 miles south of the airport. It also took the life of Flying Officer Bennett L. Duffey originally from Toronto.
Douglas Mervyn Lord, born 17 July 1918 at Warrnambool, Victoria, the son of George Walter and Eliza Ellen Lord, is interred in Sec. 29. Lot 1. Grave 105 at Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery.
While he has a grave many don’t. The Ottawa Memorial “commemorates by name almost 800 men and women who lost their lives while serving or training with the Air Forces of the Commonwealth in Canada, the West Indies and the United States and who have no known grave.”