Their bodies are buried in peace; but their names liveth for evermore.

Their Duty Done

A tribute to the men and women of the East Gippsland Region who Died as a result of their participation in World War One : 1914 -1919

Lindsay was a trainee flight pilot with No. 8 Squadron Royal Flying Corps when he died as a result of a plane crash at Netheravon in England. The third son of James and Edith Morrison he was born in Bairnsdale in 1893. He attended Bairnsdale College before finishing his education at Melbourne Grammar from 1910-11 where he was a volunteer cadet. Lindsay was a popular member of the community being involved in both the Bairnsdale Rowing Club and Football Club and was farming locally when he enlisted on 11 June 1915. He was a young man of good attainments and noted for his industry and chivalry according to the Bairnsdale Advertiser. He joined the artillery of the 2 nd  Australian Division and left Melbourne on 24 November 1915 on board the Botanist. Once in France, from 23 March 1916, he served with the 2 nd  Division without any illness, injury or offences and was promoted to Sergeant, and while serving in this capacity, he obtained a commission in the Royal Flying Corps on 16 March 1917 and went to England to be schooled in aircraft. Officially he was now discharged from the A.I.F. and part of the R.F.C. In April he had appendicitis and while recovering holidayed in Scotland in June before returning to duty. A letter to his father said he had learned the art of flying quickly and after completing his first solo flight he wrote saying he did a splendid flight and was very proud of it. Second-Lieutenant Cameron, his immediate supervisor at the flight school, considered him to be quite a good pupil and had been on a flight with him earlier that Saturday afternoon before Morrison attempted his second solo flight. He is reported to have started off full of confidence, but had only gone a few hundred yards, and was not more than 25 feet high, when in attempting to turn to the left when his right wing was down the machine “side-slipped” which he could not correct and crashed to the ground. Fellow trainees and officers reached him quickly and found him to be alive, but critically injured. He lived for about an hour without regaining consciousness, the inquest finding that death was due to a fracture at the base of his skull and other injuries. Being accepted for flight training was highly regarded but in these early days of training and flying casulaties were high. In 1917 at Netheravon alone twenty young pilots lost their lives often with multiple deaths on the same day and five were on their first solo flight. Lindsay was on his second solo flight. Lindsay Morrison was 24 years old when he died and was buried the following Tuesday at St Michael, Figheldean Churchyard in Wiltshire, England. He had survived the guns of France to lose his life in the quiet English countryside.