West Australians Killed in the Korean War

  Captain Bryan Taylor Luscombe is one of three Old Haleians, (past students at Hale School in Perth), who died in the Korean War. Hale School established a memorial grove for all ex-students who died in conflicts from the Boer War to this present day and these three West Australian pilots who were killed over Korea are remembered there. Luscombe was an army pilot, while one of his fellow Old Haleians, Richard Roslyn Sinclair was a navy pilot and the other, Maxwell Edwin Colebrook was a pilot in the Airforce. Luscombe’s father worked for the Bank of NSW which meant Luscombe attended schools in many towns in NSW, moving every few years, until the family moved to Perth in the early 1940s. Luscombe, who was known as Joe, attended Hale School from 1942 to 194.   At Hale he was a prefect in his final year and captain of their cricket team.   After leaving school Luscombe entered the Royal Military College in Duntroon. [1]   After graduating from Duntroon, he was one of one of six young li

  The telegram was delivered in February 1953 to the younger Mrs. Halley, who was staying with her husband’s parents, at the Rectory alongside Saint Barnabas’ Anglican Church in Leederville.  It told of her still new husband’s presumed death in faraway Korea on 11 February. John Beverley Halley was shot down by enemy fire after flying 77 armed reconnaissance mission over Korea. He was posthumously awarded a commission and mentioned in dispatches.    John Beverley Halley was the eldest child of Rev. Kenneth Beverley Halley, the minister at St Barnabas’ Church in Leederville for 18 years. Halley completed his schooling in Geraldton, prior to the family moving to Leederville. Halley wanted to be a pilot from his teen years.   He enlisted in the Air Training Corp in 1942 as a 16-year-old, applying to join the aircrew as opposed to the groundcrew. [1]   One of his hobbies was flying models. (He also played Australian Rules football and cricket, swam, and enjoyed athletics.)   Halley joi