Trafford

See my book - "The Walton Park Wimpy", that details the Wellington Bomber
which crashed in Walton Park, Sale on the night of the 3rd August 1943.  
Two Australian airmen were killed in this accident, one of whom was
Frederick Matthews.

"Freddie", as he was known, was born in Ouyen, Victoria on the 19th January
1917, the youngest son of Frederick James Matthews Snr. and Minnie
Matthews.   It was a large family and Fred was only 5 years of age when his
father died.      

He was educated at Hawkesbury College in Richmond, Sydney, having won a
scholarship to that College.    He was a brilliant student and went on to
win a silver cup for leadership.    Fred also excelled in sport
particularly tennis and football.    In 1936, he scored 123 goals becoming
the top scorer of his club and a club record holder for scoring the highest
number of goals in one season.  This achievement was duly recognised by
Melbourne Football Club and he was recruited by them to play for this top
Victorian team.

Fred and his wife Elsie Catherine Matthews lived in Albury, New South Wales
and they had one daughter, Beverley.

Enlisting at Melbourne, Victoria, Fred entered the Royal Australian Air
Force in 1941 at the age of 24 years.   He loved flying and aspired to
becoming a commercial airline pilot after the war.    Along with many more
of his Countrymen after training he was sent to the U.K. in the spring of
1943. 

Freddie enrolled on 27 O.T.U. Training Course No. 42 on the 8th June 1943,
coming from 20 (P) A.F.U. (Advanced Flying Unit for Pilots), which was
stationed at Kidlington Airfield situated 5 miles North of Oxford. 

It is not clear who got who out of the wreckage, but having studied reports
of the incident and spoken to the eye-witnesses, I am now going to make a
few educated guesses.  Contemporary newspaper reports state that two of the
crew were thrown out of the aircraft on impact.    I am guessing that
Freddie was one of them.

Sadly Freddie was very badly injured and died on the operating table at
Altrincham General Hospital at about 06.00 hours on Wednesday 4th August
1943.

Freddie is commemorated on the town war memorial of his home town - Albury,
New South Wales.