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Obituaries
Edward Lloyd Fleming (OW1942)
20/01/1925 - 27/11/2021
Wing Commander Dr Edward Fleming was a treasured member of the OW community who will be sadly missed. His bright spirit and energy was the essence of collegiality at Canberra events and the annual Boat Race Dinner for which he drove from Canberra without hesitation, right up until the pandemic. He had hoped until the end to make it to the next Boat Race Dinner, so he could finally be the oldest in the room.
Edward was born in St Kilda on 20 January 1925, the second son of Wilfred Fleming and Ethel Phillips and like his brother David (OW1940) (dec.) and nephew Keith (OW1972), attended Wesley. In his final two years at school, Edward was a member of the Air Training Corps. He particularly loved rowing in the winning wartime First Crew of 1942.
Edward enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in February 1943 and his preliminary training was at Bradfield Park where he was selected for pilot training and posted to the Flight Training School at Benalla, where he flew Tiger Moths, then to Mallala, where he flew Avro Ansons. In January 1944, he embarked on the New Amsterdam, destination Greenock, Scotland, before being dispatched to Brighton, England.
Several postings followed, where Edward trained on Tiger Moths and Airspeed Oxfords and later, Wellington bombers when he acquired his crew. Together, they were posted to Lincolnshire, where they converted to Lancaster bombers. Training comprised long, cross country flights by day or night distributing materials and conducting practice bombings. Although disappointed in some ways that he was not involved in bombing raids by the end of the war, he was also very grateful, as the death toll at Bomber Command had been so great.
Following the war, he returned to Australia and began studying Medicine at Mildura and the University of Melbourne under the Commonwealth Repatriation Training Scheme, graduating in 1952. He became a GP first in Traralgon, marrying Barbara Butterfield in 1956. They had two children before sailing to England, where Edward obtained Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and England. They had two more children there.
In 1966, the family moved back to Australia and settled in Canberra, where Edward practiced as a general surgeon. He then joined the RAAF Reserve as a senior surgical specialist, working at Fairbairn and deploying as a locum Surgeon to the RAAF Hospital in Butterworth. He was also involved in medevac flights from Vung Tau during the Vietnam War. Edward retired from the RAAF Reserve in 1980 and has enjoyed Canberra ever since, holding his Commercial Pilot Licence until 1990.
In Australian War Memorial circles, where he worked tirelessly as a volunteer and guide, he was known as Ted, as he felt that Edward was more appropriate for a nonagenarian! He loved to help people who were interested in finding details of a family member’s service and assisted with the indexing of the First World War nominal roll. He also compiled and published an index for the late Alan Storr’s 38 volumes of Second World War RAAF Fatalities and had been working on the nominal and awards registers of the Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation.
Edward was a charming and talented man who played down his successes and extraordinary experiences and will be greatly missed. He is survived by his children Andrea, Bruce, Lloyd and Clare and their families.
Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra