Other Properties - Australian Groups

Lot 4103    SESSION 10 (9.30AM FRIDAY 27TH NOVEMBER)    Other Properties - Australian Groups

Estimate $850
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $3,600

GROUP OF SEVEN: 1939-45 Star; Defence Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45; Australia Service Medal 1939-45; Korea Medal 1950-53; United Nations Korea Medal 1950-53; Australian Active Service Medal 1945-1975. The first medal unnamed, 36017 P Cooney on second to fourth medals, 02219. P.Cooney. on last three medals. All named medals impressed except the last which is pantograph engraved. Display mounted on cardboard sheet with b&w photograph of recipient and his printed details as well as two association badges, a few ribbons with pin-holes, otherwise very fine - extremely fine.

Together with Air Force Association badge (KC) and 52; RSL badge (three figure type) with 52 overlay on crown.

Peter Cooney, born 30Oct1922 at East Maitland, NSW; WWII: Enl.15Apr1941 at Sydney, NSW; Disch. ex 2 Operational Training Unit; Korean War: service as Flight Lieutenant (pilot) with 77 (Fighter) Squadron 24Aug1952 to 21Feb1953; killed in a Vampire aircraft training exercise at Williamtown on 29Apr1953 when his Vampire collided mid-air with a Mustang piloted by Pilot Officer Robert Strawbridge about 15 miles to east of Williamtown over the sea. Parts of the missing Vampire were found on 05May1953.

The following article was published in the Macleay Argus (Kempsey, NSW) on Mon 4 May 1953, p1.

PILOT OF VAMPIRE JET WAS KNOWN IN KEMPSEY
Fl.-Lt. Peter Cooney, pilot of the Vampire jet which, with a Mustang fighter, disappeared north of Newcastle on Wednesday, was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Cooney, of East Maitland, both of whom are well-known to many residents in Kempsey, and on the Macleay.

On Saturday, wreckage, believed from the planes, was found as far north as Forster, many miles north of where the planes were believed to have collided in mid-air and crashed into the sea. Mr. Thomas F. Cooney, the father of Fl.-Lt. Cooney, was an officer in the Land Board Office at Kempsey over thirty years ago; and his mother, then Miss Muriel Blanchard, was a popular and well respected member of the West Kempsey school staff. Mr. L. L. Blanchard, ex-Inspector of Police, of Tozer St., West Kempsey, is an uncle of the missing pilot.

The late Fl.-Lt. Peter Cooney, 31, married, was attached to the R.A.A.F. Station, Williamtown. He joined the Air Force on his 18th birthday, and had three years of war service as a bomber pilot. After the war he went to the United States for a course of instruction in Neptune bombers, and he was a pilot on one of the first Neptune bombers to be flown in Australia.

In Korea, Fl.-Lt. Cooney carried out 138 missions in Meteor jets. He returned from Korea about eight weeks ago. Recently he cut short his leave and returned to duty because of a shortage of jet instructors at Williamtown R.A.A.F. Base. Married only seven months, Fl.Lt. Cooney's wife (formerly Miss Zonia Hutcherson, a nursing sister of Cronulla) is an air hostess and was in Canada at the time of her husband's tragic death. Many of the elder generation of Kempsey and Macleay folk have extended their deepest sympathy to Mr. and Mrs. T. F. Cooney in the loss of their son, and to Mrs. Peter Cooney in the loss of her husband.

With research.