Lindsay Knowles was a Manuka Pool regular, champion swimmer and class-topping alumnus of Telopea Park School. To Merv Knowles, he was a "bonza" older brother and good bloke.
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"He did an arts course in Sydney then said to Father 'I want to fly'," Mr Knowles, now 95, said.
"By the time the [Second World War] came he was fully equipped. He was a fighter pilot."
Lindsay was just 24 when he was killed in aerial combat with a German Messerschmitt fighter over Libya in 1941 - one of nine members of the Canberra Amateur Swimming Club who died in World War Two.
The men, aged just 18 to 25, lived lives emblematic of an early Canberra. Four were the sons of heads of Commonwealth departments and one the son of the tiler who, in 1930, laid the tiles that still line the pool today.
They lived with their families in Ainslie, Reid, Forrest, Griffith and Red Hill. All but two attended Telopea Park School or Canberra High. Most joined the public service upon graduation.
The men - Harold Thorpe, Ian Ray, Eric Peterson, Lindsay Knowles, Ian Ingram, Wally Hall, Bill Dullard, Mick Clemens and Frank Browning - were acknowledged on a plaque unveiled in the foyer of Manuka Pool in 1947.
The honour roll has been lovingly restored at the direction of Friends of the Manuka Pool thanks to a grant from the Commonwealth of Veterans' Affairs.
The restoration of the plaque was welcomed as a "wonderful surprise" by Judy Stevenson, sister of Frank Browning, who attended an unveiling ceremony on Monday with brother Barry.
Frank, a champion swimmer, diver and multi-medalled life saver, enlisted in the army one month after his 18th birthday in 1944.
He died in 1945 after contracting pneumonia at a military training camp near Cowra.
"It had a huge impact on my mother," Mr Browning said.
Mrs Stevenson added: "Our father had been through the First World War then during the Second World War we went through the war years here in Canberra."
Friends of the Manuka Pool president Clive Hamilton on Monday paid tribute to the pool's rich social history.
At its unofficial opening on Christmas Day, 1930, when a one-legged ex-serviceman living in Barton jumped the fence for a swim, it was the only pool of its kind within 330 kilometres.
Lindsay and Merv Knowles were there on that Christmas Day "opening", with Lindsay eventually attracting crowds of up to 500 people to watch him race friend and pool rival Bill Dullard.
Dr Hamilton said: "The Canberra Amateur Swimming Club was formed immediately on the opening of the pool and by the mid-30s it had become the community hub of the city.
"Due to the social heritage of the pool we decided that the honour roll sitting forlornly on the wall should be restored and brought once again to the attention of the Canberra community."
