Chance to find peace for family

IT HAS been nearly 74 years since the end of the Second World War and its impact on families is still being felt despite the passage of time.

In the case of a Townsville family with relatives now living across Australia and in the US, they have only now received closure after being haunted by the disappearance of a family member for nearly 76 years.

Sergeant Melville “Micky” Beckman Tyrrell, 21, along with nine other Australian men went missing aboard RAAF No.11 Squadron Catalina A24-50 on September 2, 1943.

The airmen were on a sea mining operation to Sorong in occupied Dutch New Guinea, when they disappeared.

The wreckage of the Catalina was located near Fakfak, in West Papua, in April 2018 with the help of the Indonesian National Armed Forces.

The RAAF Historical Unrecovered War Casualties team left RAAF Base Amberley on July 14 for a recovery mission in Indonesia at the crash site of the Catalina aircraft, which they identified.

The immediate family of Micky, his sisters, brothers and father, never learned of his fate.

His father for years contacted the

RAAF always asking for updates on search missions and additional information.

And still to this day, his niece, who he never met, hangs his photo in her home.

Instead of being able to find answers, they were left to agonise over whether he had a kind, quick death or worse, had been captured as a prisoner of war and was being mistreated.

This family was not alone in their pain, sharing this grief with many around the world who also never had the finality of a body in a coffin. Their pain would have been unimaginable and millions of families would have their own war stories to share.

With our strong ties to defence in Townsville, we felt and continue to feel the pain of losing our loved ones to war.

We hope now that Micky’s family find some peace with these new-found answers.