LT CANTELLO MEMORIAL
Lieutenant Cantello Reserve
A permanent, living memorial to the life and sacrifice of a single American airman in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.
At 0015 hours on Sunday the 8th of June, 1942 the Imperial Japanese submarine I-24 surfaced 4 miles off the coast of Sydney. The submarine opened fire with its deck gun on the sleeping city of Sydney. She fired ten shells at 30 second intervals. Six of the shells failed to explode and the other four caused minor damage to houses and one indirect casuality. For the second time in a week, Sydney was under direct attack by the enemy.
At Bankstown Aerodrome, 20 kilometres west of Sydney - the only pilot on base, Lt George Leo Cantello recieved a phonecall saying that Sydney was being shelled. He grabbed his flight gear and ran out to his parked P-39 fighter plane. He took off immediately, and climbed to 1000 feet and then the aircraft's engine failed. The Airacobra plunged to the ground and exploded in a ball of flame north of Hammondville, small farming community then, now a suburb of Sydney.
Images of the P39 Aircobra in United States Army Air Force markings. This is the type of aircraft that Lt Cantello flew on 8 June 1942.
The loss of 1st Lt George Cantello in the action was not recorded in the official histories or in the various accounts of the attack written over the years. It may have well remained unrecorded had it not be etched in the mind of one of the few witnesses. John Jewell was a very young boy when he saw the plane crash.
Many times in the years that followed he attempted to interest the authorities in the incident but it was not until the early 1980's the United States Consul in Sydney initiated an inquiry. The investigation involved United States Airforce Historical Research Centre, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the Washington National Records Centre and surviving members of the 41st Fighter Squadron.
In 1988, as a Bicentennial project, the citizens of Bankstown unveiled a memorial to memory of 1st Lt Cantello - these are pictures I took in March 1999 while stationed at the nearby Holsworthy Army Base - doing my Army medium truck licence course.
REST IN PEACE GEORGE
(Source: 'The Midget Submarine Attack on Sydney', by Lew Lind. ISBN 0 646 01230 4).