Flight Sergeant Kenneth Barry Kemmis was the eldest and only son of Mr Alan Kemmis and Mrs Thelma Kemmis of Black Rock.  He had a sister Pam who was four years younger and is with us here today.  Sadly Barry and Pam’s mother died when Barry was six and Pam two.  Mr Alan Kemmis later married Mrs Elizabeth Kemmis and they had four daughters, June, Mary, Pat and Joan.  Following their mother’s death the family solicitor, and executor of their mother’s estate, Mr Walter Kemp advised that Carey Baptist Grammar would be a good School for Barry, as his son attended the School.  When he was 14 Barry enrolled at Carey and was a boarder from May 1937 to December 1940.  Pam remembers his visits home on the holidays and time he spent with his school friend Bruce Marshall.  Barry excelled at sport and was a member of the First Eighteen, Athletics, Swimming and a Cadet Officer.  In the famous photograph of the First XVIII Football team 1940, three of the boys later lost their lives in WWII.  Ian Treloar, Captain, Barry Kemmis sitting next to Ian and Noel Gadsden in the back row.

In 1940 when Barry left Carey rationing of basic foodstuffs in the UK was established, Germany had invaded Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.  Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and addressed Parliament on 4 June 1940 with his famous speech beginning, “We shall fight them on the beaches …we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”  The British refused to negotiate a peace deal and Hitler began a cross channel invasion.  In August the Luftwaffe began what became known as the Battle of Britain.  The attacks increased and the Luftwaffe switched from bombing southern England to London and from autumn 1940 until May 1941. British cities were subjected to what became known as the ‘Blitz’.  In these night raids more than 40, 00 civilians were killed. 

After he left Carey Barry went to work for the Dunlop Rubber Company until he could enlist with the RAAF in October 1941.  After training at Somers, Temora and Deniliquin he left for England in December 1942 and following further training was attached to the RAF 186 Spitfire squadron.  The Spitfires were designed as a single seat, short range high performance fighter aircraft.  During the Battle of Britain the Spitfire was perceived as THE RAF fighter.  Much loved by its pilots the Spitfire served in several roles including interceptor, photo reconnaissance and fighter bomber.  The late Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Australian icon of stage and screen flew Spitfires and was assigned to photo reconnaissance.  When asked what it was like flying a Spitfire he said ‘Dangerous’.  The Spitfire, for all its wonderful characteristics, had some nasty features, one of which was the length of its engine.  This had the effect of obscuring much of the pilot’s view not only when taxying on the ground but also in the air.

The 186 Squadron was part of Army Co-operation command.  Generally flying ‘intruder’ flights against German airfields to distract, or prevent German fighters from attacking the ‘bomber stream’.  The bomber stream was a tactic developed by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command to overwhelm the German aerial defenses of the Kammhuber Line during World War II.  The Kammhuber Line was the name given to the German night air defense system.

The Squadron continued attacks on enemy targets for the rest of the war.  On 21st January 1944, the Luftwaffe bombed London employing over 440 aircraft in the process. However, due to the heavy loss of experienced crews and the greatly improved British night fighters and other defences, the raid by the Germans was an utter failure, with only a fraction of the bombs dropped actually landing on London.

Four aircraft from 186 Squadron were lost in 1944 including Flight Sergeant Kenneth Barry Kemmis who was reported as having lost his life by drowning off the English coast.  He was posted as missing on night-flying exercises on March 14, 1944 and was buried by the villagers at St Pierre-en-Port, in the north of France.  He was aged 20 years.  Many family members have visited Barry’s grave in France and Old Grammarian Bruce Marshall wrote to Alfred Mellor, School Archivist to let him know that he named his first son Phillip Barry after his old school friend.