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This story was gathered and submitted to the WW2 Peoples war by Oliver Murphy

Colm Nolan
Surgeon Lieutenant
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
Died 19 July 1945.

Colm Nolan was the son of John James Nolan and Teresa Nolan. He started his secondary education at Blackrock College, but moved to Belvedere College, Dublin in 1933, when he was fourteen years old. The family lived at 14 Avoca Road in Blackrock at this time. When Colm started at Belvedere, he joined 1SA, which was then the top streamed class in third year.

Colm Nolan鈥檚 obituary in the Belvederian of 1946 says this about his time at Belvedere:

As a boy at Belvedere Colm was very popular and his cheerful disposition, goodness and affability won him many friends. He was a member of Our Lady's Sodality and of the St Vincent de Paul Society. He was a keen sportsman and figured prominently on the cricket and rugby teams at school.

The school records show that he was successful both in the classroom and on the sportsfield. In 1934, he passed the Intermediate Certificate with Honours. In that same year he captained the Junior Cricket XI. Colm was an all-rounder; he had one of the best batting averages and led the attack with his left-arm medium-pace bowling. Unfortunately, despite high hopes of winning the cup, Colm鈥檚 team were knocked out in the first round when they lost to neighbouring Mountjoy by just two runs.

For the next two years, Colm played with the Senior XI and is often mentioned for his high scores with the bat. In his final year at Belvedere, Colm captained the Senior Seconds rugby team. He is commended for being able to land penalties and conversions from the most difficult angles.

In 1936 he left school to study medicine at UCD. Here he won a place on the UCD Senior Rugby XV.

After he qualified as a doctor he joined the Royal Navy as a Surgeon-Lieutenant. He served on the HMS Flamborough Head, a repair ship, in the Pacific War. On his last leave he returned to Dublin and even called in to Belvedere College.

He survived some fierce fighting in the Pacific conflict between the Allies and the Japanese. The HMS Flamborough Head was then sent to Australia, for a respite.

On 19 July 1945, he was a passenger on a military plane, which lost height shortly after taking off from Sydney's Mascot aerodrome and struck a sewage viaduct nearby. Colm Nolan was among twelve passengers and crew who were killed in the crash. There were no survivors.

Colm Nolan was 26 at the time of his death. He is buried in grave 2Z A6 in Sydney War Cemetery. This cemetery contains the remains of 732 Commonwealth soldiers who died during the Second World War. These include the cremated ashes of many of those who died as prisoners of war in Japan.

The Emperor of Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945, bringing an end to the Second World War.
The HMS Flamborough Head was re-commissioned in 1953 as HMS Cape Breton. It was used as a repair ship by the Canadian Navy. In 2001 it was bought by the Nanaimo Diving School on Vancouver Island. The ship was deliberately sunk, in order to form a man-made reef for divers to explore. It sank in 3 minutes and 37 seconds and remains the world鈥檚 largest diver-prepared artificial reef.

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