Sydney Rowe was the son of Harold V. Rowe, Surveyor at the Sons of Gwalia gold mine, and his wife, Ivy.  Born in Bullfinch, he initially attended Eastern Goldfields High School but in 1930 he gained a position at Perth Modern School, where he completed the last four years of his secondary education.

 Syd was not a leading student, and after entering St George’s College and The University of Western Australia in 1934, he struggled with his course.  His deep interest in the geology of the goldfields led to success in that part of his studies, but from family correspondence it seems he would have preferred to pursue a career in music.

 On 1 February 1942, Syd joined up by enlisting with the RAAF in Perth.  He and five close friends trained together as pilots, went overseas together and all joined Lancaster crews.  In Syd’s case it was 103 Squadron RAF (Bomber Command), which had been reformed in 1936 and flown Fairey Battles, Wellingtons, Halifaxes and, finally, Lancasters.  No doubt Syd took part in raids alongside Lancaster M2 (“Mike Squared”), the most famous – or at least, the luckiest – of all Lancasters.  It flew a record 140 sorties, the first 66 of them with 103 Squadron.

 Syd took off on the night of 3 May in Lancaster ME673 for a bombing raid on France, just prior to the D-day landings in Normandy.  He was the pilot, and the only Australian on board.  The rest of his RAF crew were Sergeant Jack Henry Sallis (engineer), Flight Sergeant Ernest George Housden (navigator), Flight Sergeant Edward Arthur Metcalfe (bomb aimer), Sergeant Kenneth Robert James Warren (wireless operator / air gunner), Sergeant Phillip Arthur Staniland (mid-upper gunner) and Sergeant Dennis John Coldicott (rear gunner).

 Their target was a complex called Mailly-le-Camp where the Germans had assembled a force of hundreds of tanks, guns and vehicles that could not be allowed to reinforce their Normandy defences.  It was a brilliant moonlit night for the 362-strong Bomber Command force, of which 346 were Lancasters from No. 1 and No. 5 Groups.  The squadrons flew from their home bases to assemble over Reading, form up into their battle order and head east across the Channel to landfall over the French coast, about 15km north of Dieppe.  From there they flew to a staging point that had been marked by bright yellow flares, 22 kilometres north-north-west of Mailly, near the village of Germinon.  They would be called to the target once the Pathfinders had marked the precise bombing points with their inextinguishable flares.