By Jo Oliver, a Local Studies Librarian at Wollongong City Libraries

Ronald Bryant was a strapping young man who grew up at Narara near Gosford. At 6’1½" tall, 13 stone 2 lbs with fair hair and blue eyes and playing 1st grade football, 1st grade cricket, he would have made a striking figure. He had passed some of his school Leaving Certificate subjects and after school he went to work with his brother in Batlow as a farm labourer.

It was here he met Christina Jackson, who worked as a Sister, a registered nurse, at the local Tumut Hospital. Perhaps they met at a dance or a sporting event. The two young people fell in love and started to walk out together. Life was looking good.

But in 1939 war in Europe was declared and the Australian Government committed to involvement. Recruits were called for and in October1940, at 26 years and 9 months old, Ronald signed up. He began training with the RAAF, first at Mascot and then in Wagga where he and Christina were a bit over an hour apart. Maybe if their days off coincided they were able to see each other. Otherwise, letters would have to suffice. In February 1941 Ronald and Christina announced their engagement in the Albury and Tumut local newspapers. While Ronald completed his pilot training at Bradford Park, Christina moved back to Wollongong where her parents lived at 36 Jutland St and took up a position at Wollongong Hospital.

Ronald received his flying badge on the 1^st May 1941. He knew he would soon be deployed.  The wedding was held two days later on 3^rd May 1941 at the Presbyterian Church in Wollongong. Rather than the traditional white, Christina looked radiant in a cyclamen wool jersey ensemble with navy accessories. Their best man and bridesmaid were the groom’s brother and the bride’s sister. After a reception at the Friendly Societies Hall, the couple left for their honeymoon.

Just over one month later, Ronald embarked for the UK. The scene at the departing ship can only be imagined. Last hugs and waves as the ship pulled out of Sydney Harbour. After training in bomber aircraft in England, Ronald was placed in Squadron 102 in October 1941. While no one knew exactly what lay ahead, the Bomber Command had the most dangerous of missions and squadron 102 had the second highest losses.

At 22:14 hours on the night of 7 November 1941, pilot Sergeant Reginald Charles Matthews, second-pilot Sergeant Ronald Owen Bryant and three other crew members took off from Topcliffe to attack Berlin in Whitley Z6796.  One bearing was given from Horsham St Faith, but then nothing further was heard from the aircraft and it did not return to base. Sometime in the following weeks Christina would have received the fateful telegram in Wollongong informing her of the loss of her husband. His mother would have also learned the news. The Tumut newspaper reported that Ronald’s brother in Batlow had been informed Ronald was missing

Bad weather, storms, thick cloud, ice and hail made the route over the North Sea hazardous. That night 37 aircraft were lost, 7.4 per cent of the force, and it was thought many crashed into the North Sea as a result of icing-up on the wings and fuel exhaustion in the awful flying conditions. Prime Minister Winston Churchill called a virtual halt to the bombing campaign, and informed the head of Bomber Command that only limited operations were to be carried out during the mid-winter months, pending a review of bombing operations.

Following post war enquiries and investigations, when no trace of the missing aircraft or crew members of Whitley Z6796 was found, it was recorded in 1949 that the missing crew members had lost their lives at sea.

In 2025, the Local Studies team at Wollongong City Libraries found the information above from Ronald’s record in the National Archives of Australia and newspaper searches after receiving information and a request from Neil Matthews, in England, the nephew of Sergeant Reginald Charles Matthews, the first pilot on Whitley Z6796. His family had found some German sources which shed light on the fate of the aircraft and its five crew members. According to Flak report, the plane had been hit by Flak of M. Flak Abt. 211 and 221 at 01.30-34 hours and crashed near Süderoog -Sand on Pellworm, an island just off the north-west coast of Germany. The aircraft wreck was found but no crew. This report was further substantiated by an eye-witness account of the plane burning as it fell and the finding of the wreckage on the beach in the morning. In the end of the fuselage were two parachutes that weren't deployed and the rubber dinghy, a little burnt, with flares and food, chocolate, malt tablets, chewing gum and biscuits. In the remains of the wreckage the airmen’s bodies were not found.

It was not until 21^st December 1942 that the widowed Christina Bryant was granted a War Pension of 4 pounds, 4 shillings per fortnight. Her address is listed as ‘Kelvin Grove’ 40 Jutland Ave Wollongong, just two doors up from her parents’ house. Her name does not appear in newspapers in Wollongong after her marriage. Does anyone know any more about Christina?

Each April 25 on ANZAC Day, we remember the fallen. Neil Matthews, the nephew of pilot Sergeant Reginald Charles Matthews, believes Sergeant Ronald Owen Bryant's name should be included on a Wollongong memorial.

Sergeant Ronald Owen Bryant has been remembered on a number of memorials in other places:

• Roll of Honour: Narara NSW
• Remembered: Panel 62, Runnymede Memorial, Surrey UK
• Remembered: Panel 119, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
• Remembered: Batlow War Memorial, Batlow NSW