Lance/Sgt Harry Goodwin VX 24079, also known as ‘Chum’, was in 2/22nd Battalion of Lark Force.
He was born in Portsmouth England in 1912 and came to Australia with his parents and siblings in 1924 and settled in Queenscliffe, Victoria.
He was a baker by trade. He enlisted in 1940, leaving his pregnant wife, son Joe 9 years and his daughter Doreen, 4 years. I, Lorraine, was born after he arrived at Rabaul. Mum did ‘receive’ a letter from him saying he was a POW but that was all she heard until the telegram arrived saying ‘missing presumed dead’.
We three kids grew up not knowing much about him at all as it was so upsetting for our Mum to talk about him, so we learnt not to. After I was married my girls used to ask me questions about him and I couldn’t answer them because I didn’t know anything, so I began to search for some information as to what actually happened at Rabaul. Also to get a photo of him as we never had one at all. He was faceless, especially to me – did he exist? I always wondered ‘what did he look like, was I anything like him?’
After the 40 year reunion at Rabaul that a group from Lark Force had gone up to, I eventually found out a lot of information that we didn’t know and at last – a photo! After all those years we had a photo of our Dad.
Lorraine Tait (née Goodwin)