Charles Learmonth

When World War II pilot Charles Cuthbertson Learmonth, first husband of Marjorie Le Souef, received the Distinguished Flying Cross for sinking a Japanese destroyer in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in 1943, his citation read: ‘He has displayed tactical ability amounting to genius.’ The next year, at the age of 26, he went down in a Beaufort bomber about 30km off the WA coast at Sorrento. The Royal Australian Air Force named Learmonth Airport, south of Exmouth, in his honour.

Biographer and aviation writer Charles Page said Learmonth flew all over WA with 14 Squadron in convoy patrols in 1939 and married Marjorie Chapple in 1942 before being posted to New Guinea. He led five Boston bombers from 22 Squadron in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, where he sank a Japanese destroyer and was awarded the DFC. He was posted back to Perth as a wing commander and died on a training flight in January 1944 between Pearce and Rottnest Island in the notoriously dangerous Beaufort bomber. “He stood no chance of surviving and all the way down he reported the problem and after that the RAAF corrected it, probably saving many lives,” Mr Page said.

UWA student Frederick Erick Chidlow (1917 to 1944) died with him. Marjorie Learmonth, who had served with the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), was one of the women who established the War Widows Guild in 1945. She married distinguished war surgeon Lt Colonel Lesley Ernest Le Souef in 1947. He was a member of the UWA Senate (1936-43, 1945, 1947-77) and Warden of Convocation (1965-68).

Photograph from AWM P10680698
The West Australian 18 January 1954; Page, Charles Wings of Destiny: Wing Commander Charles Learmonth DFC and Bar, and the air war in New Guinea 2008