Lloyd Bott – 1966 photos
Wally Schirra and Frank Borman’s Goodwill trip to Australia
Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, March 1966
These details on the astronauts’ visit to Melbourne on Saturday 12 March 1966 are extracted from a report on page 5 of the Melbourne newspaper The Age for Monday 14 March 1966 (emphasis added) – |
Lloyd Bott with Astronaut Frank Borman, Melbourne, 12 March 1966. |
With Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt at his home at Toorak in Melbourne on 12 March 1966. On the right is Tony Eggleton, the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary. |
Frank Borman (kneeling) and Wally Schirra with Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt and his six-year-old grandson Christopher in Melbourne on 12 March 1966. |
The Schirras (left) and Bormans (right) with Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt at his home in Melbourne, 12 March 1966. |
At Victoria’s Government House the Schirras and Bormans are received by Lieutenant-Governor Sir Edmund Herring and Dame Mary Herring. Mr J. Carter, US Department of State Protocol Officer, is at right. Melbourne, 12 March 1966. |
At Parliament House in Melbourne. Left to right: Lady Bolte, Mrs Schirra, Captain Walter Schirra, Sir Henry Bolte, Premier of Victoria, Colonel Frank Borman and Mrs. Borman, March 12 1966. |
Seated at the main table, from left: Lloyd Bott, NASA Rep Ray Hooker. A luncheon in Melbourne, organised by the Australian – American Association. (Thanks to Ray Lloyd for help with ID.) |
In Sydney, the astronauts are welcomed at a public function in the Centre Court at the new Roselands Shopping Centre at Wiley Park at Noon on Sunday 13th March 1966. Roselands (now known as Centro Roselands) was the first regional shapping mall to be built in Australia, opening in 1965. At the time, it was the largest such centre in the southern hemisphere. Seated on the podium, at far left, is US Department of State Protocol Officer Mr J. Carter. Standing at the microphone is the Mayor of Canterbury (the local Council area where Roselands is located), Alderman A J Pate. Directly behind him (partly hidden) is Mr. B. A. Grace, Chairman of Grace Bros. Holdings and his wife. Grace Bros. built the shopping centre, and their flagship department store is behind them. |
The astronauts are surrounded by well-wishers at Roselands Shopping Centre in Sydney. |
In June 2015, Australian space historian and author Colin Burgess spotted himself in the above photo! Were any of our other readers present that day? Contact. |
Update, May 2015: Website reader Kevin Short writes: “I still have a photo of myself meeting with the two astronauts on that day. On the following Monday [March 14 1966] fellow students informed me that I was in the paper. The Daily Telegraph had captured the moment.” Scan: Kevin Short. |
University of Sydney
Astronaut Frank Borman speaks to an audience in the Wallace Theatre at the University of Sydney. Lloyd Bott is in the front row, in front of Col. Borman. Writing notes, in the lighter colour suit in the front row, is US Ambassador Ed Clark. On the Ambassador’s right, fourth from the camera in the front row, is (it seems) American Physicist and educator Professor Julius Sumner Miller. (Thanks to Colin Burgess who compared this photo of Frank Borman with others taken at Roselands Shopping Centre, demonstrating they were taken the same day. Other checks by the author showed this is the Wallace Theatre.) |
Unknown location. Left to right: Lloyd Bott, Susan Borman, Josephine Schirra, ?, ?. Can anyone help with the ID? |