Australians at War Film Archive

Right from the beginning?

I see. I was born at Carlton in Sydney, the last of seven children, four sisters and two elder brothers, so I was right on the end of the line.

Lived there not very long, and from there we moved up to Dundas, which was those days was out in the country and now it’s just another suburb of Parramatta. Couple of years there, then back to Carlton in a different place all together. Started school there, and then moved to Concord West. That was about

1929, and was there until I joined up. Did all my school days there, North Strathfield Public School, then Port Street for five years. And then went off to work. Worked for a while for Nestles in their dispatch office, and then up into their main office for a year or two.

Then during that time did an accountancy course by correspondence, cost me two and six a week for that course. Then moved to a place, electrical wholesale, Lawrence and Hanson who operated in York Street. And I was there when I joined up in 1940, and I remember

getting a very severe lecture from their managing director, that I couldn’t expect to go off and come back and find a job there waiting and all the rest of it. And anyway, he was most upset about all this, anyway about a fortnight or a month afterwards he committed suicide. Just his concern about the war and having been through the first

one, couldn’t sort of face up to the second one. So I left there and went onto the air force reserve in June 1940 I think it was, my introduction. When you did the medical and went onto reserve, and during the time I was on the reserve, which was about ten months, I did some coaching

for the Blennerhassett’s institute of accounting it was in those days, did some coaching for them while I was waiting to go into the air force. And as Betty said, she gave me an ultimatum, “Marriage or else,” and that didn’t seem to be much of a proposition to me, so we got married almost immediately, July 1940, as she told you. Then during your waiting

time you did the course I suppose, a night course. We set ourselves up in a little flat in Clovelly, and the courses were held at the Randwick racecourse. So I went up there a couple of nights a week and they did some navigation and a few other subjects as just a preliminary to going in. And then finally

called up in July 41. Went to… that’s right, isn’t it? Oh, April, April 41 that’s right, went to Bradfield, the No. 4 ITS [Initial Training School] at Bradfield for two months. And the time there was spent mainly in drill, Morse code and PT [Physical Training].

They seemed to fill in the whole of the time, with little bits and pieces of other, but that took two months. Then from there off to EFTS [Elementary Flight Training School] at Mascot. And Mascot was being used, the full course was about thirty but Mascot could only accommodate fifteen. So half of us went to Mascot on that course, the other half went to some of the other

EFTS’s. And Mascot was Tiger Moths, that was our introduction to flying. I think it’d be safe to say that none of us had been in an aircraft before, so it was completely new. And our first introduction was to go up with an instructor and do aerobatics. And the area for aerobatics at that stage was over at Kurnell,

you did your flying above Botany Bay. I didn’t take very kindly to aerobatics and made up my mind that day I think, that single engines were no good to me, and I wanted to go onto twins, or multi-engine as they call them. And I never did settle down to aerobatics, as a matter of fact when I finished, the army comment on the report was,

“Aerobatics aren’t polished.” And I thought, “Well, that’s the way they’ll stay.” And from the time I walked away at Mascot I don’t think I got in a single engine for the whole of my air force career. From there our next move was off to Canada, and as Bett told you, she was in the happy position of being in the movements office.

And there were three of us, you did everything alphabetically at that stage. So there was Berkel, Brown and Cameron. That’s the way we lined up the first day we went in at Woolloomooloo, and that’s the way we started right through training virtually. That was amazing for us, a trip on the USS Monterey. It was like being a first class passenger.

Off to Auckland for a day, a day or so in Auckland, then to Suva, a day in Suva, Honolulu, a day in Honolulu. And finally over to Los Angeles, and a train from there up to Vancouver, and across the Rockies to MacLeod. That was SFTS [Service Flying Training School], No. 7, I think SFTS. And of course at that stage there seemed to be aerodromes

everywhere over Canada. This empire air training scheme was really getting going. And of all the organisations in the war, I think that was the one that was most important. That somebody, I believe it was somebody from the RAF [Royal Air Force] and the Canadian CAF [Chief of Air Force] got together and in about 1938 before the war started, realised

that this was going to be an air war. And that means you’ve got crews to train starting from virtually nothing. And just in that, what about eighteen months, we were in MacLeod, which was in the southern part of Alberta, and there would have been five SFTS dromes just in that little area.

And they were spread all over Canada, and looking back on it, it’s just astounding that you could start from nothing with air crew, and within twelve or fifteen months they’d be flying everything on operation in great quantities. Anyway that was at MacLeod, that was on Ansons, twin-engine aircraft Ansons. We finished there and then

during your initial career you were asked, “What do you want to do, singles or twins?” Well it was funny that three of us all plugged for flying boats. Why, we didn’t really know, but we just thought it was a gentlemanly occupation, and we all knew about ten squadron flying Sunderlands, and they were the aircraft

being used by Qantas on the Sydney-New Zealand flights, and also on the Sydney-Singapore. So they were really very comfortable aircraft, and we thought that would be very good to do. So we kept plugging for flying boats. At the end of SFTS we got our pick, and we were posted over to a

GRS [General Reconnaissance School] at Charlottetown, which is Prince Edward Island on the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. So we did two months there, and that was regarded as the forerunner to going on coastal command. And to be a pilot on coastal guard you also had to do navigation. So that two months was spent primarily not on flying, but

on navigation and particularly on astro-nav [navigation]. So that was the two months, and much to our surprise, instead of being posted to flying boats as we hoped, we were posted to an SFTS on Hudsons, which was at a little place called Bourke in Newfoundland. So off we go to

an OTU [Operational Training Unit] on Hudsons, and it wasn’t very encouraging because I think we were about the fourth course and there was hardly a course that had finished without having to go back to the next one because the casualties were so high they were just sort of dropping off. Mainly with crashes on landing and take-off, because everybody

coming from Ansons with three hundred and fifty horse power engines, tiny things really, moving up to an operational aircraft like Hudsons with twelve hundred and fifty horse power engines, they were finding the lifts a bit heavy. Anyway we all got as far as solo, I got off solo and did

quite a bit of time on them, about forty hours I think on Hudsons, and I was the first one to get into trouble. I ground looped a Hudson on landing, and as everybody knows on Hudsons the under-carriage was constructed such that if you did a ground loop either on landing or take-off, it just sheared the under-carriage off and that in

turn ruptured the petrol tank, and so the trouble was that it almost invariably went woof. Well it was much safer to do it on landing than take-off. With full power on on take-off it was virtually certain to blow up. With landing it was probably fifty-fifty. Anyway there were three of us on there, you had the pilot, a wireless op [operator] and a second pilot on doing just practicing circuits and bumps.

And I let it ground loop because I didn’t have proper control height, and we were up and out of there very smart. But it didn’t blow up fortunately, so we were ok. No, I was the first of the three. The next one was Sid Brown, he was doing a cross-country and for some reason or other one engine cut out.

He got through the drill for one, single engine flying, the second one cut out, and they finished up in the trees. That killed the navigator, seriously injured both Sid and the wireless operator. And that put Sid out of operations for almost the next twelve months. He spent about another six months in Canada just recuperating

from his injuries from that. So that was two of us out with Hudsons. And the third one was Berkel John Berkel, who doing a cross-country at night flew into a mountain. So that was the three of us started on Hudsons and none of us finished. But I was the fortunate one, but I thought, “Oh, that’ll be the end of that lot.” You have an accident like that, “I’ll probably be back as a navigator or a

wireless op.” But no, that wasn’t so, I was lucky enough to get posted to UK [United Kingdom]. So off I went to UK. This was a bit of a different trip to crossing the Pacific. It was a pretty lousy trip in a converted banana boat that had been on the South American run, and took about thirty or forty people.

Had a few passengers, but mainly air force going to Europe. And crossed the Atlantic in a convoy, didn’t have any trouble in the crossing but it was pretty rough, not very pleasant. And that took us to Ireland and across to a place called Stranraer in Scotland on the ferry. And then began an episode I suppose, I reckon I

saw more train travel in UK than most Poms. From Stranraer we did a train trip down to the south coast. The posting depot as they called it, for all Australians arriving in England, was at a place called Bournemouth on the south coast. So down there we go, down to London, from London down there, took about two-days by train.

And I suppose there must have been about forty or fifty, not only Australians, but Canadians and South Africans waiting for postings. After a couple of weeks, four of us I think it was, were called up. Right, we’ve been posted to Pembroke, not Pembroke Dock, to Invergordon. Well Invergordon is on the top right hand corner of Scotland. To do a Sunderland

OTU, well that suited us fine. So off we go train up to London, overnight up to Glasgow, all day from Glasgow up to Invergordon. And when we got there adjutant says, “Well, I don’t know what you people are doing up here because we haven’t got a course starting for about another six weeks, so you better take a bunk in a hut and I’ll find out what’s to be done.” So the next day we get told,

“You’re not wanted here, you’re wanted down at Pembroke Dock.” Well Pembroke Dock was down on the bottom left hand corner of Wales. So on the train again, down to Glasgow, Glasgow to London, London to Pembroke Dock. Fortunately yes, yes, “You jokers are going to Gibraltar. There’ll be a couple of aircraft here tomorrow and you’re to

join the crew and go to Gibraltar onto the 202 RAF squadron,” which was coastal command. So the next day yes the aircraft arrive. Yep, we’re going up to Greenock, well Greenock was up on the climb to Glasgow. So in a day we were back up to Greenock. So in that time we were up to the middle of Scotland and down again out to Wales and up to Greenock. So anyway, we

joined the crew and Greenock was the maintenance depot for flying boats. And Gibraltar had some facilities to do ordinary maintenance but when the aircraft came up for majors as they called it, they had to be flown up to the main base at Greenock. So this crew came up, left that aircraft, and we got another one off to Gibraltar. So that was my beginning of

flying in Catalinas carrying you know, nominating flying boats all the time I’m the only one of us that finished up on a flying boat. So I thought, “Well, that’s pretty fortunate.” So I joined the squadron there at Gibraltar. They had a Catalina squadron, they had a couple of squadrons flying from north front, that was the runway

as they called it. And I was there for what was that? 1942, about July 42 to April 43, doing my time as second pilot. You did your time as second pilot. Then back up to Ireland to Killadeas, which was on a loch up in Northern Ireland

to do a course as a captain, and get a crew and do some crew training. We did that and we had a pretty motley crew. I was number one, our second pilot was Jock Cooper from Edinburgh, our navigator was Bill Batham from Melbourne, the other came from around UK. And Paddy Sharp the wireless operator from Belfast.

So we had a pretty international crew. So then Gibraltar until, what was it about February or March 43, no that’s 44 of course. As Bett said, that’s just before our fourth wedding

anniversary. So I was posted back to England and reported there, and they said, “Look, you can either stay here, but there won’t be much you can do because everything’s getting lined up for D-Day and that’s the organisation, or you can go back home and do something in the Pacific.” So of course I said, “Yeah, I’ll go back home.” And of course by this time it was

early June, I think it was. And there began the sag of getting home before our fourth wedding anniversary, which seemed totally impossible because there was no priority giving to anybody coming from Europe to Australia, the only priority was going that way. But anyway, we were called up for our posting. Up to Glasgow

we went by train, I think there were ten of us, in the group coming back to Australia. Up to Glasgow by train, and much to our surprise boarding the [HMS] Queen Elizabeth. Well the Queen Elizabeth had been finished during the war, but it hadn’t been fitted as a passenger ship, it was fitted as a troop ship. And it was so

crowded coming from America, they were taking about eighteen thousand I think it was, because they were all lining up for D-Day. And they had, even on the deck the bunks and these wire mattresses, five or six high on the deck with just enough room for people to sleep in between. But they, the Queen Elizabeth

and [HMS] Queen Mary were sort of commissioned to move the troops over, and according to reports those two finally made D-Day possible by being able to bring enough troops across. And all this time flying from Gibraltar, we were engaged what became known as the

Battle of the Atlantic, but it was never defined what was sort of going on. But that was our part in the war was to be involved in the Battle of the Atlantic. And I don’t think it was until after things had settled down and you look back on it that you realise how important that was, because it was generally conceded without winning the Battle of the Atlantic, D-Day would never be

possible. You would never get enough equipment and men across the Atlantic to stage D-Day. And that’s the way it turned out when you look back on it, that becomes extremely clear. But in the time at Gibraltar the things that we were really involved in was just the general Battle of the Atlantic and then the invasion of North Africa, that gave us a very

busy time flying on convoy escorts and anti-submarine operations from Gibraltar, because the whole idea was to get air cover on as much of the Atlantic as possible. And the big problem in the early stage of the submarine warfare was the gap in the middle of the Atlantic that couldn’t be covered by air cover,

because it was conceded that the losses of ships particularly in convoy with air cover were almost nil. Any convoy with air cover was pretty safe from submarine. But they had that gap, and that was the reason for having Catalina squadron at Gibraltar. They were slow, sure, but they would stay up for a long time.

Eighteen hours was the usual, which meant that the Catalina could get further out into the Atlantic than anything else they had at that stage. Sunderland was good but it didn’t have the hour range of the Catalina, and with anti-subbing convoy it wasn’t so much that you were going anywhere, but you wanted the hours in the air. So that was Gibraltar, back over to

New York. And this is the big saga of getting back. Over to New York, into the posting depot and oh three weeks, four weeks was the usual of staying there. Again I think there were three of us were lucky. After a couple of days we thought, “Well, we’ll go down to Washington for a day,” you can do that from New York, couple of hours on the train, and we’ll go down to

Washington. So we caught a train down to Washington and got off the train and going off the platform and jolly MP [Military Police] there say, “Are you Cameron, Goldsmith…?” And I forget the third joker’s name. “Yes.” “Well you’re wanted back in New York.” “Oh gee, we’ve only just come down.” “That's right, you’ll catch a train and go back to New York.” So back to New York we go, report to the adjutant. “Yeah, that’s

right, you’re wanted at Fairfield.” Well Fairfield was over in California just out of San Francisco. “What for?” “Don’t know, that’s all, here’s your orders, report at Fairfield.” So over to Fairfield we go, took us about three days by train I think to cross the States, over to Fairfield, report there. “Yeah, that’s right, you’re crewed up on Liberators.” “Oh

strike me, I’ve never been on a Liberator in my life.” “Oh well, that’s all right you’ve done a lot of flying over the sea and you can do some navigation, yeah you’re crewed up to fly a Liberator back to Australia.” Oh gee, that was great, you know by this time, time was getting on, but we still got a bit of time to come back. So we got up one day, and it’s all right because the number one

pilot was a cove called Ted Dupleix. And I always remember his name Ted Dupleix. And he’d been on Liberators on a squadron in the Middle East. So he knew all about it. So I find myself crewed up as second pilot and relief navigator on a Liberator to ferry it to Australia. Well that was great so, down to the factory pick up the Liberator, give it a test flight

one afternoon. Yeah, that's right, fuel her up, put her on the end of the line. And it was great to do, because there was quite a group to be ferried that day, but the organisation was extremely strict. You had to be off within half an hour of daylight, to go to Honolulu. Because they were mostly Americans, and

seeing that Americans had two different lots of navigators, you could be a navigator day or a navigator night, so they had to get to Honolulu before dark. It didn’t worry us whether it was dark or light or what it was. But that was the rule, so you had to be off within half an hour, and there’s a line of Liberators, “Start the engines, taxi out.” And if you missed your slot, if you had anything wrong and missed your slot

over you went and you were wiped for that day, you’ll have to go tomorrow. Anyway off we got to Wickham Field in Honolulu, that was fine. I looked back on the old hours, and you wouldn’t believe it, it took forty hours flying time to go from San Francisco to Amberley. But off we go the first days to Honolulu, the second days

to a little island in the Pacific called Kanton, which was nothing but a coral atoll with a runway on it, but that was the half way, because you couldn’t get from Honolulu to Nadi in one hop. So you went to Kanton, stayed overnight, then went to Nadi in Fiji. Then the next day was supposed to be from Nadi up to

PDG [Plaines de Gaiaca] as they called it on Noumea, refuel there, and the next day go to Brisbane. And I can remember old Ted saying, “Look, if we’ve got decent weather tomorrow we could make Brisbane in one hop, we wouldn’t have to go to PDG to refuel, we could get there.” And that’d be Friday night, Friday afternoon, we could be on the train on Friday night and back home in Sydney on Saturday. We thought, “Oh

gee that’s great, that’s terrific.” So off we go from Nadi and the idea was after about three or four hours knowing what the winds were and the weather, you’d make a decision, “Yeah we can make Amberley or we have to go to PDG.” The decision was we’ll make Amberley. So Ted said, “Yep, if we do that we’ll get there Friday afternoon,” thinking we’d all get on the train and home tomorrow.

Didn’t happen that way. But we were lucky enough we did make the fourth anniversary. So when we got back got a bit of leave and we got a bit disgruntled after that because I got posted to Bairnsdale to do a GR [General Reconnaissance] course, I

had done one, two years ago. I’d been on coastal command for two years, but, “No, no, you’ve got to go to Bairnsdale and do this GR course, it’s a refresher course.” And who do I meet as I go to Bairnsdale was a so-called Norm Langdon. And there was two Catalina squadrons doing the African do. The 202 and Norm was on the other one which was 210, and they were actually based up in the Shetlands

doing Russian convoys and whatnot. But some of them came down to Gibraltar on detachment to cover this African invasion, busy time. I got on the train in Melbourne to go to Bairnsdale and there’s Norm Langdon sitting there. I’d known him when he came down to fly from Gibraltar. So we teamed up then, and we went

to Bairnsdale, and fortunately Bett was able to have leave at that stage. And we had some time together, she was able to come down. But anyway we did that and next thing up to Rathmines, the OTU there. Pick up a crew and do some crew training, because that was quite different because we’d been on anti-submarine and convoy in the Atlantic

and up here were going to do mine laying and ship strikes. So we had to do another short course on mine laying and what not. So we picked up a crew there, and fortunately Norm’s brother had been a wireless operator there and he’d been at Rathmines, and he knew a few of them. And this was getting a bit late in the war as you can imagine, and quite

a few of the cove’s who had been sort of side tracked into instructing at Rathmines were anxious to get on operations. So we were able to pick a fairly experienced crew who wanted to go on operations. So from there we were posted up to Melville Bay, up to 42 Squadron. But before that down to Adelaide to do what they call a

tropical hardening course, lasted a fortnight. It was really a bit of a joke I think you’d say, because we were supposed to get hardened up to go to the tropics I suppose, and it consisted mainly of some hikes I suppose you’d call it in the morning. You had to report in the morning, do

this quick march down to Green Hills or somewhere. Then after lunch nobody cared what you did. So we lived in town, reported at eight o’clock in the morning and went off again at about lunchtime. This lasted a fortnight. Then up to Darwin, the train, the old Ghan up to Alice Springs, from Alice Springs up to Darwin in an army truck. A week or

two at the depot there. Then we got posted over to 42 Squadron over at Melville Bay, and that’s on the corner of Arnhem Land. Well that was a bit of a culture shock. We had been used to much better conditions than we got at Melville Bay. We got issued with a tent and a stretcher and whatnot. Officers up there and NCOs [Non Commissioned Officers] down there,

and put up your own tent and do for yourself. And we thought, “Boy this is a bit rough hearted, this is not how you run a war.” But that’s how it was anyway, so we thought it was a bit grim but we settled in all right. And that was 42 Squadron at Melville Bay. Did some mine laying in Borneo, then did a detachment up to the Philippines.

to do some mine laying on the China coast, and a few shipping strikes. Then the war finished, just as the war finished I was posted over back to Darwin on 112 ASR, Air Sea Rescue. And almost immediately the war finished, so instead of air sea rescue we really became a

transport unit. Did quite a bit then on transport, and the one thing we did then that we really felt worthwhile and was interesting was the Singapore incident. We took the medicos and their equipment to Singapore, stayed there two days while they picked out the

best of the prisoners that had been in Changi, and we brought back seventeen in each aircraft. Bit of a crush in a Catalina of course, it was not made for passengers. But we brought them from Singapore to Labuan in Borneo the first day, they went into hospital overnight. Then they’d be onto Darwin the second day and that’s as far as we came.

The OTU at Mascot was arranging all this as a PR [Public Relations] exercise, and we only got involved in it because one of the aircraft from Rathmines, it was taking off on the Darwin Harbour in the morning, ran up on the sand bank and crashed. And they came along to our wing CO [Commanding Officer]. The old

boot Captain Campbell to get another flying boat to carry onto Singapore, but he insisted, “No you want to take the boat, you got to take the crew.” We got called up then, being air sea rescue you always had somebody ready to take off at about a quarter of an hour’s notice. And we happened to be duty crew that day and we got called up to go to Singapore. But that was a really worthwhile

exercise, and something to remember. Then we did quite a bit of transport around, a number of trips up to Balikpapan in Borneo and up to Labuan and that. A funny experience in Labuan, the same operation office served the strip, they had a strip, and the flying boats on

the bay. And I was standing outside the ops [operations] room, I’d got my instructions and waiting for the navigator and the wireless operator to get theirs. And I saw a DC3, old Douglas transport come around into the circuit, and come around, land on the strip and taxied up to the ops room, and the crew gets out,

and who’s the pilot but my older brother. I went away in ‘41, Don he hadn’t joined up at that stage. But he later joined the army and after a while in the army he decided he’d re-muster to aircrew in the RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force]. I just knew he had done that, but what he’d done,

I didn’t have a clue. But he’d joined 36 Squadron, the transport squadron and he was flying up the coast. The drill was just, “Hey John, how are you?” “Pretty good Mick.” “What are you doing?” “I’m going back to Darwin, where are you off to?” “I’ve got a load there, I’m going up to Morotai.” Morotai was further up in the isles. “Oh well, I’ll see you.” That was our

meeting after what, two and a half years. Anyway that was the experience on 42 Squadron, what I think I did the last flight, I looked in the old log book, which is the bible for any pilot, I think it was the end of January, and the last flight I did in Cats [Catalinas] after two thousand hours, was Rose Bay

to Rathmines. That was the end of that lot, and discharged in February ‘46.

Well, we had a big family, and I was the youngest, so I had four sisters very much older than myself. And we seemed to exist all right, two of them were working,

and my elder brother was working. My Dad was a tailor and in those days a hand tailor, and he worked on piecework for a tailor in Bligh Street. And they seemed to, he wasn’t fully employed by any means, but he seemed to have enough just to tick over, so we seemed

to manage all right. Being so much younger than the others I didn’t really appreciate what was going on other than just carrying on at school.

Yeah, yes. I was a bit out of the swim

really and didn’t get caught up in all the family difficulties I suppose you’d say. But we lived at Concord West at the time and seemed to get by all right.

Yes it was, we were quite close. Although by that time two sisters were married,

so they were sort of away, but the rest of us were home. Yeah, two brothers and a sister all existing at home. We seemed to manage all right.

Yes.

Looking back on it, I thought it was a bit of a funny existence because we had a bit of property, I think it was about eight or ten acres

and grew some peas and beans. Father wasn’t a farmer, Mum knew more about it than he did. But we seemed to get itinerant labour in to plough up the paddock and grow these things. Again I was only fairly young, but I did have recollection of this and I suppose all the things that get discussed in the family afterwards.

Because the two elder sisters were working then, one did a course in music. The second sister she was extremely bright and she went to university, third and fourth. But they used to bring their friends home for Saturday or Sunday during picking time and they seemed to be able to get most of the peas

and beans picking done with voluntary labour, so that worked out well. I don’t know if I remember that or whether I’ve been told about it, so often by my older sister, but apparently I set fire to the house one day. Playing with the fuel stove and fire, I took a stick out and there was a curtain alongside it and somehow or other I lit the curtain and up she went,

and a heap of newspapers in the cupboard caught fire. But fortunately there was a cove working on the farm outside, and he saw the smoke issuing forth and rushed in and put the thing out. I think I only got told about it, I don’t think I remember it. But everybody seemed to enjoy their time at Dundas, the girls used to talk about it

afterwards as being a very happy time. But in those days the little steam train ran from Clyde to Carlingford. And the two elder ones, the one going to uni used to be up in the morning to catch that, down into Clyde and then into town, all by steam train of corse. So for them it was a pretty heavy operation I think, working in town and living out

that far, which was a long way out in those days. But apparently the guard knew the Cameron sisters, and if they hadn’t turned up before the train went he’d be looking around to see if he should wait a few minutes and give them a few minutes or not. But they were well known, the Cameron sisters in Dundas.

Oh just being a family, I think,

or just being a social, wasn’t a very big place I can tell you at that stage. I know the three of us used to go to the primary school up on the hill and we formed about twenty-five per cent of the school I think.

Oh, I find it hard to think of anything particular. As a little older kid

I joined the cubs and was very active in the cubs and scouts, and ultimately became a scoutmaster. Which ended up in getting married of course through, it was really through the scouts and the church. Although I was never a very good churchgoer, I was actually a Presbyterian, and the only thing I knew about it was well you had to go to Sunday school three Sundays

in a year. Because if you didn’t go the three Sundays before the Sunday school picnic, well then you didn’t go to the picnic. That was about my extent of Sunday school. Well then of course I met Bett and I had to go to church on a Sunday night, or I didn’t see Betty on Sunday night. That ultimately finished up, I wasn’t an Anglican but I got confirmed in Gibraltar, in the

cathedral at Gibraltar I finally got confirmed into the Anglican Church. So as a kid I don’t know anything special I was interested in other than cubs and scouts.

Yeah, I have because it really filled in a great part of time. Wasn’t just the scouts but we had a cricket team, we had a football team,

and even the younger set, everything seemed to sort of emanate from the scouts’ movement. We found it very good, we all joined. Jack, I had two elder brothers, Jack, he was in the army in the 7th Division, and then Don I told you about in the air force, we all joined scouts and went through. Jack was a scoutmaster,

Don was and I was, so we had a very close connection. And our mothers, both Betty’s mother and my mother worked on the parents’ committee and they used to do the catering for dances and whatnot. So the sort of whole family was involved in the scouting movement.

No, Dad wasn’t in the army and the only connection we seemed to have with it was Dad’s brother, he was a stretcher-bearer. But no, we didn’t hear or talk or whatnot much about the First [World] War.

When it came turn of course, it was just as a matter of course. The war was on you joined up. The only thing you could make up your mind about was what you wanted to join. At that stage the air force, it’d be the pick of the bunch, I thought it was anyway. And having done the leaving you then had an educational qualification

sufficient to join aircrew. And because you know, the bulk of chaps at that time a) wanted to join the air force b) join air crew and c) become a pilot, I suppose ninety-five per cent that went in, if they had the educational qualification nominated for a pilot. If you couldn’t be a pilot well you’d finish up as a navigator or a wireless operator. But the first pick was always a pilot.

Well, you didn’t have to walk.

No, never had any thought of the navy, and frankly the army didn’t appeal and I think that was due to your impressions from the First War, the mud larks.

Yes, I think you’d say we did know a fair bit about it. And I think it’d be fair to say we knew it was coming, although you didn’t like to admit it, it’s a bit like a death in the family you know it’s going to happen but it’s always a shock when it

does. Nothing like these days of course, we weren’t getting radio reports every day on what was going on. You did get radio reports, but they were fairly general you know. But there was enough information to know, yes it was brewing.

They weren’t surprised, I think they were well prepared. Mainly because I think the older brother, he was in the army reserves, and he was probably better informed than the rest of us. And I think we knew from what he told us and whatnot that the army expected to be involved in a war.

But I won’t say the funny thing, the thing about it was that it was accepted, if the war in Europe is on, we were in it. There was no if, buts or doubts or whatever it was just that way.

Yeah.

It was Empire. And all through the war I don’t think it was sort of doubted at any time that we should be there. Bit different to what it is these days when everything is questioned and cast into doubt and whatnot. People then were quite sure what they were going to do, that was the way to go.

There was only one joker I ever struck who questioned what he was doing, and it was a great worry to him. He was a bit of an intellectual actually, Merv Austin. He came, he was a UK chap but he came out here afterwards and was headmaster on New England College I think. But it

really worried him whether he was doing the right thing participating in the war. But that’s the only time I heard anybody question what they were up to.

Yes, yeah. What worried him, he was posted to night fighters and he didn’t know whether he was doing the right thing.

Just the war in general, yep. Yes, wasn’t as if he was engaged on bomber command or something of that nature, it was a very individual thing for him. Generally people accepted it, that’s what’s got to be done, that’s what you did.

Oh yes. I think you regarded yourself as a bit lucky if you did. Yeah, you always knew there was a possibility that it won’t happen.

I was just like wanting to go on flying boats. You expressed that desire, but you’re always conscious the possibility of that you know, a bit remote. It was surprising how many jokers nominated multi-engine finish up on fighters, or nominate fighters and end up on multi-engine. So I would think

that getting your nomination was no better than fifty -fifty.

I would say educational qualification would be pretty heavy, that you had the qualification.

And it became pretty obvious very early as to whether you were going to make it or not. When you got to EFTS you had ten hours to go solo. If you weren’t up to standard to go solo in ten hours you’d get a test from the CFI [Chief Flying Instructor] and he would make up his mind, “Yeah you can have another two hours,” or, “No, sorry mate

you’re not up to that.” So they sorted out pretty early, but I think primarily it was just educational qualifications and just aptitude. Which showed up reasonable well I think in doing PE [Physical Education] and drill, whether you had co-ordination, well let’s put it the other way, if you didn’t have co-ordination it’d become

fairly obvious in the amount of PE and the exercises that were done. And I think to some extent they were designed for that purpose to test your qualification, ah reaction.

Yes, I would think so, but we all had the attitude, well, if you were good enough you could be a pilot, and if you weren’t good enough you’d be back in the swim for a navigator and if you weren’t good enough for that, well then you could always be an air gunner or a wireless op. But I think there was a hierarchy, sort of pilot navigator, yeah. Because nobody or very rarely did anyone step up from navigator to pilot, always went

the other way. And even at SFTS we were sort of never sure, will you make it at the end, or will we be back in the pool for navigator. So right up until you qualified at the end of SFTS and you got a couple of wings to put on your uniform, you wouldn’t assume you were going to make it.

Yeah, I was all right. Somewhere between seven and a half and eight I was able to go solo. See it was funny back at SFTS at Mascot, see Mascot was still a civil drome and you’d get up to going solo level with dual at Mascot, but then to go solo

you went over to Bankstown. And Bankstown at that stage was just a paddock. There wasn’t even a shed. So when you got over there with the instructor, he’d get out and go and sit under a tree while you did your solo. And it was just a paddock. And you can imagine, there’d be six or eight coves doing their solos in Tiger Moths all thinking they were the hottest pilots to join the

air force, but utterly knowing nothing about it. You could just about handle the aircraft and that was all. But what really impressed it on you as you went on, you’d do EFTS and think you were pretty hot passing out of EFTS, and then you’d go to SFTS and looking back on it thinking, “Blimey, how could I ever exist at that standard?” And then when you finished at SFTS and went

on you’d think, “Boy, how did I ever make it through there, knowing so little about it?” And as you went on you realised how little you used to know back there. But the funny part about it, I suppose the serious part about it was the number of coves that went from one to the other to the other without ever having any trouble. That yes, you could cope

with a Tiger Moth, and even at that stage you could cope with an Anson and so on. But when you got to the end of it, and when you went onto service flying and when you looked back on how little you knew when you were doing EFTS and SFTS it really surprised you.

Yeah, I think so because they knew what it had been like. They had been through the drill and knew that you were just a sprog. I always pitied the instructors having to sit there beside a pupil and watching him make mistakes but making sure well he had to make it before he could correct it. Because I did a bit of it myself, I did a bit of instructing on Catalina, and I knew

not very much, but I knew how hard it was you know the blokes not doing it right but you’ve got to let him do it wrong first and then correct it. So I always pitied them.

Oh yeah, although if you knew the aircraft, as I did with Catalinas you knew how far you could go before you had to do something about it.

Well, I suppose about the worst moment I had I think in my whole career in the air force was doing

aerobatics in a Tiger Moth and doing a loop. If you didn’t do it right, or if you didn’t have enough speed you got to the top of the loop, and you might have only dropped a fraction in the harness, but boy it felt like you were going to fall out. And from then on I didn’t like aerobatics. And I suppose it was a bit harsh on the Tiger Moth, but just the fact that you had to sit out there in the slip

stream and you know, an open cockpit and flimsy little aircraft that you had to be so careful of. Whereas, as you got on, particularly with the Catalina, it was a bit like driving a double-decker bus, compared to a sports car. So I never had any desire to go back and fly single engines.

Yeah, with the landings - if you were going to get into trouble that’s where it happened, on landings.

And I would say very, very few of us would say, “Yes, they went through training and didn’t have some trouble on landings.” Nearly everybody would start off pretty rusty, well not rusty, but not being totally competent

on landings. That was the thing you had to cover, once you got the landing technique then that means you can handle the aircraft.

I would think the major one would be

landing speed and the attitude of the aircraft. Whether you had the nose right and the landing speed right, otherwise you’d be on and off. And once you did the bounce well you had two alternatives, you could either put on the engine and stay up and sort of land again, or

if you had enough speed, and it was a matter of judgement I suppose, you could kind of hold it and correct it and land off what you’d say is the second bounce, I suppose. It’d be nose attitude and flying speed. Touch too quickly and you’d be off again. Pull the nose up too much and boom you sort of hit hard enough to bounce.

Of course when you, after I left the Tiger Moth, and Hudsons, I didn’t land on a runway, I only used water, and that was a bit different technique to landing on a runway.

Yes, you

had more tendency to fly on, to just flatten out and fly and just slowly touch on the water. Whereas on the runway you sort of had a tendency to take-off the power and touch down on the. Once you got the knack of it, it was easy enough. The other thing landing on water of course the runway was always flat,

the water never was.

Yeah, yeah you would.

Well, you could either fly on if the sea was, swell was the major problem. And that was a major factor at Gibraltar

was the fact that there was always a swell in the bay. But you could judge the swell and you could either fly on with your usual technique or whether you had to stall on, which was get the aircraft down on a speed until it just wouldn’t fly any more and go flop. So that you didn’t have enough speed to get tossed off by the next swell. So, a bit different technique.

Yeah.

Well, the major difference for us was that we were going from a single engine aircraft to a twin. So instead of one engine you had

two to worry about and generally heavier. Just the same on control, the techniques were all the same, it was just getting used to handling two engines and the weight of the aircraft. But everything else was the same, the instrument layout was the same, the basic techniques were the same.

A twin flew the same as a single, you know all the theory of the flight was the same, all of that. Getting from a single to a twin, or a Tiger to a twin, you had flaps on the twin, you had an undercarriage, which would collapse or wind up, whereas the other one was fixed you didn’t have to worry about that. Flaps made quite a bit of difference to

technique, I suppose. You know the use of flaps altered the altitude of the aircraft and speed and whatnot. So that was just something else you had to learn, but the techniques all the same.

The overall impression of?

I thought it was very good. You know you got plenty of instruction, we got twenty odd, twenty-five hours dual and twenty hours solo. So the instruction we got, do a bit of dual, go off solo and practice whatever you had to do. Then the next dual you’d do the same thing again,

but for the instructor to check whether you had done it right. If you hadn’t done it right he’d correct it for you. So it was quite good. The standard of instruction was good.

Yes, particularly Sid Brown and myself. When you say many, no not many,

but a few were quite close. Sid and we remained in contact well after the war and right up until he died. We were very friendly with him and his wife and family. Then, bit different to the army, see when I got posted to the UK, I didn’t know a soul. Get posted to a squadron, completely new, knew nobody.

Got a bit, I don’t think any time you tried. Once you got a crew of your own yes, I got very close to Bill Batham, our navigator from Melbourne, and Jock Cooper from Edinburgh. We kept in touch long after the war. As a matter of fact Jock Cooper from Edinburgh, we visited several times and did some trips around Scotland,

and the last one we did with he and his wife were absolutely tragic. We went over there and joined them and we were going to do a trip out to the Western Isles, to Harris and Tweed. And to do that you went up the coast to a place called Ullapool, and then caught the ferry out, and it was about four or five hours on the ferry. And when we got there

Jock wasn’t all that good, and he’d had an eye cataract operation, I think it was. But he seemed to be ok, so off we went up to Ullapool, but his wife Netta didn’t want to go out onto the Isles, she didn’t like the boat trip. So they stayed in Ullapool at the motel, Betty and I went out there for three or four days. Came back, when we got back

Jock wasn’t well at all, hadn’t been to the doctor but he’d been in bed and hadn’t felt good, and instead of carrying on with our trip, he said look, I’d like to go back to Edinburgh and see my doctor. And the trip back to Edinburgh from Ullapool was about four hours I think, so we did, but he was sort of in a

coma, wasn’t good anyway. We said, “Look, Jock let’s go straight up to the hospital, it’s a holiday in Edinburgh. Let’s go straight up to the hospital and get you checked out.” “No, no don’t want to do that, I want to go home, ring the doctor and he’ll come down.” Well ok, they lived in Edinburgh, very close to the city, so we drive home. And by this time

he couldn’t get out of the car. So a couple of neighbours come along and we got Jock out and put him onto a chair to carry him inside, by the time we got him inside and put him on the bed, he was dead. That was poor old Jock, second pilot, we’d known him for years. So instead of getting him there and getting up to the hospital, he just got inside and died of a heart attack. Yeah,

so that was our unfortunate trip to the Isles. But when you say friends, I think those two and then Norm Langdon the navigator who came back and we did a tour up here. Yeah, we were very friendly. Ian Stockwell another co from Gibraltar, he was RAF type. We kept in touch with him until he died two years ago.

I didn’t find any difference. No, I couldn’t differentiate at all. First time I was at Gibraltar,

I had an Australian first pilot, a Canadian navigator and wireless ops from UK and whatnot. And then second time as I say a Scot pilot and wireless ops. No, I couldn’t say the Australians were better than the Poms, or the Poms were better than the Australians, or the Canadians were no good or useless.

But I think due to this Empire air training everyone was trained in the same way, and all up to virtually the same standard. As to personalities, didn’t find much trouble at all. We were lucky in both crews, particularly the one I had. We went right through a tour, and a tour is about

seven months and eight hundred hours flying. And we didn’t have a change in the crew until about the last month when Jock got a crew of his own. And that was the only change we had all that time. And in all that time the only trouble I can remember having was with the Brigger, as he was called, Nobby Brett.

He also had to act as…and cook and whatnot, because you had to stay within the Catalina you know. One day or one night we were lining up to take off and Nobby decided he would mutiny. So he said to Jock, Jock was our disciplinarian, I didn’t worry about that too much because he’d been in the Scotch Guards, he’d been a sergeant in the Guards and he was a real disciplinarian

and he looked after the crew as far as I was concerned. And Nobby said, “Well, no I’m not getting the rations, no that’s not my job, somebody else can do it. Nobby go and get the rations.” “I’m not going to get the rations any more, I’ve had enough of this.” “Righto Nobby you’re on a charge, you and you, two of the sergeants in the crew, out to the guardhouse.” “Oh wait a minute Jock,

wait a minute.” “No Nobby, you wouldn’t obey an order. Out to the guardhouse.” “Oh wait a minute Jock.” Left-right-left-right, “Oh all right Jock I’ll get them.” And off he went and got the rations, and that’s the only trouble I can ever remember having on the crew. Not a very serious business,

but they were a good crew.

Oh yeah, it was good. They were good, they mixed in well. Sammie was the wireless operator, one wireless operator, only knew him as Sammy, couldn’t tell you his Christian name. He was Samuelton. And Sammy was always tired, always yawning about and tired and always skiting about his

his Mum. His mother was a swimmer and she’d swam the [English] Channel. His father was a bike rider, and they have an epic bike rider in the UK from Lands End up to John O'Groats. So the crew reckoned well, Sammy’s mother swam the Channel, and Sammy’s father rode his bike from Lands End up to John O'Groats, and that was the night Sammy was conceived. Quite a joke amongst the crew.

No, hadn’t been near one.

Before I joined?

Oh yes, we’d been past Mascot and what not, we’d seen a few. And at Concord West there was a bit of flying going on at Mascot at that time and the inter-state flying had started, so we did see aircraft around. Never been close to one, certainly not in one.

Yes, he was working for Nestles and he was transferred to Adelaide for his job. And he was booked on a flight, I think it was, not Ansett, TAA, Trans Australian Airlines, I think. Going to Adelaide which I think it was two hops in those

days, you didn’t get from Sydney to Adelaide in one go. So there was a big send off, the whole family went to Mascot, and it shocked Betty because I took her out, then we saw him off. And after that there was a relative living close to Mascot airport, so it was decided we would go out and have a cup of tea with them. But when we got there, there was nobody home, but that was all right, somebody found a

window open, climbed in the window and opened the front door. So we all went in and made a cup of tea, so we made a full day of it. But that was really something when he went to Adelaide by air. That was the first close association I suppose. But it was quite peculiar when we went flying there, because it was still being used for the inter-state and whatnot airlines,

and when there was an airline coming in or going out they’d put up a big black ball. And the pilots’ tower in those days is where the middle of where the Qantas terminal would be today. So they put up a big black ball, and that was the sign, Keep well away until the aircraft had landed and taken off,” and they took the ball down.

And the train, the train used to run across the aerodrome. That’s the one that runs out, it was Bunnerong in those days. And the same thing, if the train was due come across the aerodrome, up he’d come the black ball and that meant everyone would stay where they were. If you’re on the ground you stayed there, if you were on the ground you stayed away. So Mascot was quite different then to what it is now.

But the closest we got I think at the ITS, at Bradfield. They had the fuselage of an old Fairey Battle outside and you could look at that through the fence, but you couldn’t touch it. That was just there for show. But that was the closest we came to an aircraft before we actually went to Mascot to fly one.

Oh yeah, that was the aerobatics with the instructor over Botany Bay. And as I told the girl, the one thought I had in the spin, which was a pretty frightening operation for the first time, going around and around and down. And I was thinking, “Well, if we hit the water we’ll make a big splash and there won’t be any sharks around.”

For our first flight we were taken up and taken through the aerobatic procedure. It was spin, loop-de-loop and slow roll. And I thought, “No, not for me, not this.”

No, I didn’t have any thought or sensation there, other than,

“I hope we get up all right.” And then when you were up you hope you get down all right. No can’t think back that far.

At the end of EFTS, half of us went to Canada, and the other half

went to SFTS here on singles. Those that were going onto multi-engine went onto Canada, and those that went onto singles I think they went to, would it be Narrandera?

Narrandera, to an SFTS here. But that was another indication of the success of this EATS [Empire Air Training Scheme] as they called it. By that time in Australia

they had developed EFTS and SFTS in pretty well every state. There were three or four in New South Wales and a couple in Victoria. All developed in that short period of time. So it was really surprising how quickly they put it together.

When we joined up there was nothing but overseas. America hadn’t come into the war, Japan hadn’t started. That didn’t happen until you know, ‘41. So it was just natural to propose that you were going overseas. And then it wasn’t until America came in of course, and Japan

that the aircrew were needed here rather than going to Europe. But then the chaps were staying here. But then some of them were still going to Europe because they just didn’t have the aircraft to fly here. You know very poorly equipped. Wirraways were their front-line aircraft and they were only training aircraft. Had a few Ansons and I think that was it. It wasn’t until later on in ‘41 that they

acquired Catalinas from America. So the actual development of the air force itself was slower than the training scheme. It was the same in Europe too. They were at the beginning in the first year or eighteen months I think they were turning out aircrew quicker than they were turning out aircraft for them to fly. But then that

soon got overtaken and they were turning out aircraft at a great rate. Even then their front-line aircraft on coastal command were Ansons, well they were antiquated sort of things. And their heavy bombers were, well they had a few Wellingtons coming on, but most of those were pretty old designs.

Even the Catalina was designed for use in 1936, so it was reasonably old when the war started. Australia got a couple of squadrons from America, they were originally designed for coast guard use. Then of course, as the war came they used them as PB-Ys as they called them, patrol boats, and the Y indicated the manufacturer.

Made by Consolidated Aircraft.

Oh power, mainly power.

Even a Catalina at that stage when it was designed it only had an eight-fifty or a thousand horse power engines, well by the time we got them they had stepped their power up to twelve hundred horsepower. And from what I’ve read they’d altered the contour, stretched it a bit and increased the wingspan, which of course gave

them more endurance than the old one. But mainly the big advance in aircraft was the power, the engines and what they could do with them, and what they could use them. And then the aircraft would be designed around the engine. Your, the wing design would really be determined by the power you had on the wing loading.

So I guess you could really say the design was really built around the power of the engines they could use. And then of course you moved up to the jet, but that didn’t come until the end of the war. Germany had a couple of jet aircraft. They took on jet aircraft before the end of the war, but they didn’t get them into any great

production fortunately.

Only in the power again. The fact that you had more power, more speed made them more manoeuvrable.

Whereas, the older type were loaded to capacity so you didn’t have much room for error between what they call stalling speed and flying speed. So it was mainly in the power of them, but handling much the same.

All the old aircraft had wire control like from your wheel in your cockpit to the tail you’d have a system of wires. Well now in your new aircraft they’re gone by the board and it’s all electronic control now. And I suppose the biggest step up from the very old ones to more modern ones was using hydraulic control instead of the old manual wire

control. So in those fittings yes there would be some big advances.

No. No, because they hadn’t occurred anything like what they occurred later.

We certainly didn’t think of bomber command as the dreadful situation that it was, that it developed later. Even fighter command I suppose when we joined we had knowledge of the Battle of Britain and the heavy casualties among the fighter pilots, but no I’m sure I’d be right

in saying, no we didn’t realise what the casualty rate would be.

Coastal command were not nearly as heavy as fighter command, nothing like it. Matter of fact, you’d say for the hours flown in coastal command the casualties were very light. I should qualify that by saying it depended

on the area. In the Bay of Biscay area, which was mainly the area that ten squadron and Sunderlands operated in, the casualties were much higher than our area which was out in the Atlantic, because they had to cope with the German fighter aircraft, and particularly JU88s, which were a pretty lethal aircraft.

Whereas we only had to cope with, the only one was Focke-Wulf Condor, which was a four engine aircraft. Very much like a flying fortress. The only four engine aircraft the Germans produced I think. It had a long range, and was used for anti-shipping. They were the only ones we had to worry about, we were out of range for fighters, so the casualties on the

coastal command were less than, nothing like bomber command.

Yeah, yeah. Well all knew a lot about them. And this, you say the Japanese air force. This suicide bombing is nothing new you know, the Japanese developed kamikaze pilots as they called them, suicide

pilots who would just drive their plane into a ship. And they did a lot of damage. They were the forerunners of the suicide bombers. So yes we did, we had a lot of intelligence on their air force, planes in use and performance, and you learnt to recognise them too. Although we didn’t

have to worry too much about them, but bomber command yeah they could recognise German aircraft with no trouble.

Did they?

No, they only knew they were extremely lethal, that was all. But

the navy were the ones that suffered. They really suffered from this kamikaze business. Particularly from, it only developed at the end of the war. In the Philippines, when the Americans attacked the Philippines, and that was late in 44, right at the end of 1944 and that’s where they came into their own. But

what everybody should be conscious of, particularly when they talk about should the bomb have been dropped, Japan had decided that they were going to defend the place with kamikaze troops and pilots. There would have been a dreadful holocaust. Iwojima, and what was the other one, Okinawa,

they were fought to the death, and Japan would have only been a massive example of what happened in Okinawa and Iwojima. Would have been a dreadful thing, and I can tell you that I don’t think there would have been anyone involved with the thing at that stage that had any doubts about dropping the bomb on Japan. It just stopped the thing overnight. Everybody heaved a great

sigh of relief. I think the only ones that questioned whether it should have been done were those never likely to be affected by it.

No. No, I can’t remember just the instant. I can remember the sort of general knowledge of it. And yeah everybody was greatly

relieved. Because at that stage the European war had finished, the RAF was lined up to bring out a heap of their aircraft and operate out here. It would have been a massive operation. And it was just cut off, wiped off, not necessary, so all of that didn’t have to be done. As a matter of fact, might be an aside

but, the minister of the local church wears his ribbons and I happened to say to him the other day, “Well, where were you?” And he said, “I was in the UK and I was all ready to fly Lincolns,” the Lincoln was the host Lancaster, “All ready to fly to come out with a squadron of Lincolns to the Pacific when the bomb dropped.”

So didn’t have to do that. You know just was lined up to be done, that didn’t have to be done. Might be the wrong philosophy but I’d say well that’s the way it was, mighty pleased it was that way.

No, nobody knew where they were going. You just assumed you were going to England and Europe, and if you finished up in the Mediterranean or somewhere else well that’d be just different. But no, I don’t think

you really contemplated being anywhere else. You were going to go to England to fly in Europe and that was that. Then of course people finished up all over the place, Africa, Middle East, Far East, Burma, spread them out everywhere.

When you say arrived, we just arrived at Los Angeles and then went up to MacLeod. But our first real experience of the United States was when we finished at MacLeod SFTS we got ten days leave, so of course everybody hot-footed it down to New York. We had to go over to the east coast anyway.

So everybody got their leave passes and spent their ten days leave in New York. And we had a dinner there, there’s a photo floating around somewhere, one of the hotels on 42nd Street put on a lunch for the whole lot. I think there were over fifty of us who went down. And we’ve got a picture there of the whole course, who were entertained at lunch

by this hotel. And I would say that was an example of the American hospitality. Put on a show for you. And they had USO [United Service Organisations] I think was the office, anyway it was an office, voluntary office and you could go there and be put in touch with people who were prepared to entertain servicemen and whatnot.

And Sid Brown and myself went there. “Yes, Mr. so-and-so would like to take you to dinner tonight,” and you meet him at such-and-such a time. Anyway when we turned up there, “Yeah, Mr so-and-so turned up but he’s too busy, too busy tonight, so here’s two tickets and you go and give them to Joe and tell him I sent you and he’ll give you

a meal, and then the two tickets will take you out to the theatre.” And that seemed to be to us to be the American way of hospitality. Now it might have been a bit unfair because it was in New York and that was the time. But that contrasted with the Canadian hospitality which was “Come home, come home and have some dinner.” And so the

first impression was pretty superficial. And then of course the only other contact we had with the States was when we came back through New York for a couple of days. So to form an impression of the States, I don’t, that would be unfair. But that was in February ‘42 and of course the Hawaiian thing had happened in the December, and they

had just gone into the war, and there was a great flurry then. Anyone in a uniform was really favoured, favoured in a sort of impersonal sort of way.

Oh, the attack on Pearl Harbour?

That was a surprise because there was very little information circulating about Japan, or the possibility of a war between the States and Japan. It, I think I’d be right in saying no, nobody ever thought about it, you know it came as a great surprise,

you know Japan. So it was not anticipated the same as Europe was. Then when you read about it you wonder, “Well, why didn’t we know about all this?” I really think it came out of the blue, but when you read about this the Hawaiian attack on Pearl Harbour,

the Japanese admiral who’s given the credit for planning and carrying out this, is reputed to have taken it from the English and the RAF. That they carried out a similar operation on the Italians at Taranto, they carried out an air raid and decimated their fleet with torpedo attack and from then

on, this was very early in the war, and from then on the Italian fleet wasn’t a force at all. So he was only repeating what the RAF had done at Taranto. ‘Copycats’, they say of Japan.

Yeah, yeah, we were but it didn’t make any difference

anyway. We knew that nobody was being moved back, anybody that had gone over there stayed there. We didn’t participate in it at all, and also it’s surprising how little we knew about it. But even as time went on you knew, oh yes this is happening, that’s happening,

but it seemed so remote and so far away from what you were doing, everybody got engrossed in the job they were doing at the time. And what was going on around about was very remote. And the information that was sort of published around was very sparse too. Because the whole attitude was, well Europe’s in Europe war,

and Australia and the States have got their war going on in the Pacific. And it surprised us even after the war we had some friends come out here from England, and one particular lady who’s well educated and whatnot, we took her to the Canberra War Museum and she was amazed at

what had gone on in the Pacific. She had no idea that the Pacific war was so spread. That so much had happened and that the danger from it had been so great. They were so engrossed in their own situation that it hardly seemed to register that there was a war going on the Pacific.

Funny, isn’t it? Yeah, quite odd.

Well, there’s not much to tell because it all happened so quickly, you don’t know why it is. But the figures,

the Hudsons, they were using were operational aircraft and they had a turret in the back near the tail. Now that made them unstable. It’s like towing a caravan, if you’re towing a caravan if the caravan gets off you know and starts to wobble a bit, you’ve got to know what you’re doing to try and correct it. Well it’s the same with that, if

your tail started to wobble a bit you sort of couldn’t correct it enough to stop the next one, and what you really did was aggravate it. So you feel it start and then it just gets a bit worse and then boom. Once it gets to an angle of about fifteen or twenty degrees that puts just such a sheer loading and the undercarriage

that it just collapses. Once that happens of course it ruptures the petrol tanks, and that’s when the petrol comes out onto the hot engines and boom up she goes. So that’s all you know about it. I suppose it would be right to say you know it’s going to happen because you can’t stop it. Probably at that stage you get yourself ready to shoot out at

the first opportunity. But when you see it happen, you see the chaps come out of there like cork out of a bottle you know. The hatch is over the top of the pilot’s head, so you let the hatch go and out you go. But it all happens so quickly you don’t know about it. You don’t act you only react.

Yeah, yeah, but it stops pretty quickly. Once it’s gone down on its belly it’ll stop pretty quickly, so you don’t have long to wait.

Yeah, well that’s it you see. When you get off straight and the undercarriage collapses that’s a ground loop, because if the undercarriage didn’t collapse you’d just go around in a

circle, but it doesn’t happen like that, you don’t get that far. But no, once the chaps got used to it, flying Hudsons, they were quite happy with it. But it’s the same with any aircraft, once you get used to it you’re quite happy with it. But some of them, the Beaufort here,

it had a bad reputation nobody liked it. Two, the Beaufort and the Vultee Vengeance was a pretty heavy, well built as a torpedo aircraft used as a bomber. But they were unpopular too. But the Beaufort mainly through, well they found a design fault ultimately

in the Beaufort of the design of the tail and tail plane made them unstable. So there were quite a few crashes of Beauforts through their instability. And I think the Vultee Vengeance was much the same. It was regarded as being too heavy for the power, so it was unstable too. But most, almost every aircraft, whoever flew the

aircraft to get used to it, oh that’s a great aircraft you know.

I suppose probably five to ten trips to make you feel like you knew what it was going to do anyway. But then you got the feeling well, it’ll do whatever I want it to do. Once you got to that stage it was great,

you and it were quite in unison.

No, I can’t really, you know, I can’t remember the first time. It’d be at Gibraltar. No.

Well, once you got it in the air there was no difference, it was just another aircraft. Landing and take-off was a bit different just that you had a reaction from the water that you didn’t get from a runway. But flying it, no,

there was being a second pilot I had a bit of experience before I did take-offs and landings. I flew with Brian Tait, he was an Australian with 202 Squadron. Brian had an interesting career, he’d been an architect before he joined up, then he joined up the RAAF went to Europe. He was on

202 Squadron when I was there, so I flew with him. Six or seven months he was number one, I was number two. So I did a trip or two before I did take-offs or landings, but I can’t remember the first one. But he had an interesting career, he stayed over there

afterwards, and was an architect and he only died about two years ago. And as part of his job, he retired and he was called back, he lived in Gloucester, and he supervised the reconditioning of the Gloucester Cathedral was part of his job. He did some very good work, yeah.

We did a lot of flying together.

Yeah, it was an odd technique, in most twin-engine aircraft each pilot has his own control wheel. But in a Catalina you’ve got a yoke that goes right across from the first pilot across to

the second pilot, and both pilots have a wheel on there. So the technique of take-off, oh the throttles on a Catalina were also peculiar, they’re up here, they come down from the roof the throttles and the pitch control, so both pilots get hold of their yoke and heave it back because it’s quite heavy to get back. As you open the throttle you’d think you were a

submarine first, because the nose throws up water, the prop throws up water back over the cockpit, so all you get’s a sheet of water coming back and both pilots heaving back on this yoke, until you get up to about to twenty or thirty knots until you get up on a steep like a speed boat. You know how a speed boat will rush along and

then steep up, well you get up on the step and then the water subsides and you can see where you’re going. It takes a while to build up speed on the water of course, and once you get up to flying speed it’s just a matter of, oh well the technique is once you’ve got it up on the step the second pilot lets go, you’ve got it then, you control it yourself. His job is to make sure the throttles stay open and

you get the open about nine-tenths of the way and then there’s a little gate and if you want that little bit of extra power you can push it through the gate. So he takes his cue from you, if you’re flying you get into a situation where you don’t

quite have flying speed, you want a bit more, so you give Jock the nod, he pushes it through the great and that gives you that extra little bit of strength to lift off the water. And once you’re off the water I suppose you might do another quarter of a mile before you’ve got climbing speed. You do a quarter of a mile about twenty feet off the water, then you’ve got climbing speed, so

you can ease it up then. Then and you give Jock the signal and he’ll pull the throttles back because you don’t want them flat out any longer then you have to. Once you get flying speed you can take a bit of power off, and then it’s up to you, on a Cat [Catalina], a fully loaded Cat you’d climb very slowly. Right up to its capacity. So that’s the technique

of take-off unless you get caught in the swell of course, then it’s a different matter. Because before you get flying speed you can get tossed off, go up, but it won’t fly, you’ll smash down again and maybe hit the next swell or whatever. So it’s a matter of guessing by God really, yeah, you’ve got to know

will you have flying speed? Are you going to come down again? If you’re going to come down again you’ve got to come down again, you’ve got to come down at the right angle. If you have the nose too low you’re only going to dig in, if it’s too high you’re only going to bounce higher again. And you can finish up with the bottom knocked out as we did once. Jolly thing split, oh I suppose about an eight foot split through the bottom, but fortunately the same swell that split the bottom

pushed us high enough to get flying speed. So we were off, just as well otherwise it’d just have torn the bottom out. So the state of the water’s the main problem. Yeah, if you tried to take the aircraft off a runway with three or four foot bumps in it you wouldn’t do too well would you? But that’s what you strike with a bit of swell,

with Gibraltar particularly was notorious for being rough water. Actually that’s why Catalina squadron was at Gibraltar.

Yes, because two things really. A Sunderland was faster than a Cat. Cruising speed on a Catalina was about ninety knots, that’s about a hundred and five

miles an hour which is mighty slow really. But a Sunderland was better than that, probably about a hundred and forty or something. So it was, and also it was known as the ‘flying porcupine’ because it had gun turrets on the side and top and bottom. It was really well armoured. Catalina had very little, had two point fives, one in each blister

and a three, oh three in the nose which was regarded as a peashooter. So in armaments and speed the Sunderland was way ahead but the Catalinas range in hours was eighteen to twenty, the Sunderlands was maybe ten, so that was the difference in the aircraft. And the difference in the handling of course, a Cat

would handle rough water better than a Sunderland. And at Gibraltar they wanted the hours and the range to get further out into the Atlantic, and that’s why they swapped over from Sunderlands to Cats, it was just not a better aircraft but just different and better for the purpose that was wanted. So that’s why they swapped over.

We had a totally different thing you see, Catalinas over there, there was only three squadrons. There was one at Gibraltar covering the Atlantic. There was one up in the Shetland Islands and its job was to cover the Russian convoys in the North Sea. Pretty awful job compared to what we had down below. They had a dreadful job,

mainly with weather conditions but also with German aircraft flying from Norway, of course. And the third one was flying from Northern Ireland. But out here of course they had, well I don’t think they had any more than three squadrons, but they were used more for bombing and island work, whereas we were all just anti-sub and convoy over the ocean. So it was a different job entirely.

You know, they had a rougher job out here I reckon then we had over there, they thought so too.

Yeah, the Catalina was flared out and only doors

about eighteen inches. The Sunderland’s sides were comparatively narrow, and sits much deeper in the water with a much flatter hull. So if, where a Cat doesn’t have to lift far, the Sunderlands got to lift itself right up onto the water, and then it’s got a much less, what would you say, surface area for its weight. Whereas,

a Cat’s got a bigger surface area for its weight and that’s what makes a lot of difference in take-off on the rough water.

No, the slow speed really was if you got into

a situation could be an advantage. Because the only thing we had to worry about were these Focke-Wulf Condors. We didn’t have to worry about single engine fighters and that, the range was far too great. And the slow speed was an advantage because you could turn with a much less circuit then a Condor would. And sort of evasion was easier,

because he had to line up and sort of make a straight approach for part of it anyway, and he had to get you in his sights. But your turning circle was so small, he was going around and around. So the only couple of times we got involved with them we found the smaller turning circle and the slower speed was an

advantage. I must say two aircraft of that nature, neither of them designed for aerial fighting there might be a few shots fired and honour satisfied and you go on your way. I think both of you’d be thinking the same thing, “Well you can’t do this too long or you’ll be out of fuel before you get back,” and neither of you were asked

to go out there and fight aerial combat anyway. Your job was to go out there and look for submarines, and his job was to go out there and look for ships. So fighting wasn’t part of the curriculum.

Yeah. They were very good aircraft for ship reconnaissance. They were heavily armoured and carried a fair load of bombs and strangely enough the only four engine aircraft the Germans

used. But they did have a long range.

Or two double deckers dancing with wolves.

If you could, but it very rarely happened. And the statistics of coastal command, we used to wonder you know, what are we doing all this for? The number of sorties, what’d one hundred thousand, wasn’t it?

Coastal command flew over a hundred thousand sorties. That was all squadrons because not only the Catalinas the Sunderlands, there were squadrons of VLRs as they called it, very long range, Liberators, Hudsons, Wellingtons all dotted around the north of England and the North Sea to cover this blank in the Atlantic. So they flew

a tremendous amount of sorties but the idea was that the submarines didn’t have much of a speed submerged in those day. Well they didn’t have much on the surface either although they could get up to around sixteen or around about that in short bursts. But they couldn’t travel any great distance at sixteen knots. And submerged their normal speed would be about five,

so they could get up to about eight or nine in short bursts too, but it’d be very short. Otherwise they depended entirely on batteries on submerged running. Otherwise the idea was with air cover they couldn’t afford to surface, therefore they couldn’t manoeuvre into a position to attack. If you discovered them on the surface you,

we were too slow to get to them before they submerged. If they had dived for more than a minute, you knew they were past the depth of depth charges. A depth charge would explode at fifty feet. And they would be beyond that, if they were beyond a hundred feet it might shake the crockery off the shelves,

but it wouldn’t do any hull damage etcetera. Also of course once they turned, with a depth charge you could only lay it in a straight line anyway. So attacks were very few and in 1942 where the Battle of the Atlantic reached one climax, it was found afterwards that they could receive our radar

transmissions, so they knew where we were quicker than we knew where they were, and that allowed them to dive out of sight. And so the radar we were using, instead of being able to pinpoint them was acting as an early warning system. So attacks, when you relate the number of sorties and hours flown to attacks on submarines from the air

they were very, very few. So we didn’t feel so badly about the fact that we didn’t too much good as far as attacking submarines were concerned. But if you were in the air, and they couldn’t travel on the surface, that really disarmed them, they had nowhere to go. If they did travel on the surface then you could spot them and you would post it on to the naval escort and they would hunt them. And that

was the big advantage about air cover. Not that you were able to attack and destroy a submarine, but that you could prevent him from getting in a position to attack the convoy. Because at those speeds, you know once a submarine was twenty miles from a convoy it would take him hours to make up the difference between his speed and the convoy speed. So that was the great advantage,

and when it was finished it was found that there was very few ships lost where there was aerial cover on a convoy. It was regarded as almost safe to have aerial cover. Then of course I think it’s almost a story on its own about how the Battle of the Atlantic developed and was ultimately won. But maybe we’ll leave that to be an extra and dealt with on

its own. But that was our job, to be there to make sure that a submarine couldn’t surface and manoeuvre and get into a position to attack. So we were happy about that.

Convoy had two main officers, there was the

commodore in charge of the convoy. He was on a merchant ship, he was in charge of the merchants ships, that was his pigeon. Then there was an SNO, senior naval officer, he was in charge of the naval escort. Now when you came up to a convoy, you first of all identified yourself a couple of miles away with a very pistol.

You’d fire off a very pistol and it had, the cartridges had three colours I think it was red, yellow and blue. So you could have combinations, you’d fire off and two colours would show. You could have a red and a blue. Green was in it too. A green and a yellow or whatever it was. And you could have a combination and that was your first contact. Then

the next one, you could close in to about two mile, you could never fly over a convoy or a naval ship without identifying, otherwise they’d take a shot at you. So the next one was with an Aldis lamp. A lamp, and you would signal the letter of the day, when you went out every day you’d be given a code letter. You would signal that letter

of the day, and he would answer it, then you could close in. He would then issue his instructions. No radio, no radio used because that could be identified by the Germans a convoy there. It was done by signal lamp. So you contact him and he would signal back his instructions, what he wanted.

What pattern he wanted today, what he wanted you to do. And you’d get the instructions of creeping line ahead five, or stern five, or you might get a boxed five or two, and that’d be the miles to give him. And that would depend on the visibility of the day, if it was crook visibility he’d want you close, if it was

good visibility you could spread out a bit. And that was your instructions what to do. You would do what the naval officer told you, “The commodore had nothing to do with it.” Although I understand that he could make a request to the naval officer, and that’s where you got your instructions and that’s what you did. And then each time you completed a circuit or whatever he wanted, if it was anything different they’d give you the signal on the signal

lamp. Wasn’t terribly easy either to read the, they’d think you were better than you were. They could do what, thirty-five, forty a minute, Bett? Whereas what you could do from the aircraft you’d be difficult in more than say reading twenty or twenty-five. They were loops of five letters a minute, weren’t they?

But in that case you wouldn’t be using code you’d be using plain language, but radios were never used. They were out unless there was an actual attack. Because Germans had listening devices, they could pinpoint a convoy if they were using radio. The same as the British were pinpointing their submarines,

they were regarded as terrible chatterers. The submarines.

Yeah. An hour of the day set aside for submarines to report in, and the British would have a couple of radio stations listening in. So once you got two stations listening to the same message and one station would say, “Well, he’s in that direction,” and the other would say “Well, he’s in that direction,

well there he is there.” Yeah, they were regarded as real chatterers reporting in.

It was very helpful, yeah. But the great thing about that battle was the great improvement in escorts. When it started off of course the first, the British went straight into convoy as soon as the war started. The U-Boats were out,

they were already dispersed so they started their convoy, but what they didn’t have was enough escort ships. So a lot of them were just sailing with corvettes as they call them. They weren’t much bigger than a trawler. You know, a thousand tons in a corvette and a four-inch gun was all they had. But they were the best they could do,

and they had the odd destroyer, which was the only real weapon against a submarine the destroyer. But they went straight into that but they had so few escort vessels that it took quite a while to catch up. And in 1941 the Americans helped out. They had fifty old World War I destroyers

and they provided them to England on the basis of this lease bailment [lend-lease scheme] and in return America leased some bases in Bermuda and somewhere else, Brazil I think it was. England had a couple of naval bases there, so the Americans leased those and in return they leased fifty old World War I destroyers, usually

referred to as ‘rust buckets’, to England. And I think that was Roosevelt’s first indication of assistance to England in the war, because he had a hostile parliament that didn’t want to be involved. So any help that he was able to offer as president sort of had to be under the

lap. But they were useful, but only moderately so. They were unreliable and slow, but they did fill a gap. So that was the first assistance that came from America. Then they developed more from there, but that’s on the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes, I think it’s

worth a bit of treatment.

Because as far as I was concerned that was my occupation during the war, anything else was incidental.

Yeah. The creeping line ahead was a nightmare for the navigator. Because if he wanted a creeping line ahead at five miles or ten miles or whatever, and he tells you a second distance for the spread. And that meant that you stayed five miles ahead of the convoy, and you’d go five

miles each side of him. But you couldn’t just set a course at right angles to the convoy course, otherwise you’d just go up and down in the one place and he’d catch you. So the poor old navigator had to work out a course to stay five miles ahead of him. So it had to be his speed, plus enough lay off to stay out at five miles. Now that might sound easy

but the thing you had to contend with was the wind conditions. And to go that way you needed a different heading to stay five miles ahead than going that way. He had to work out a course and take account of the wind, and the wind in the Atlantic was constantly changing, not a great deal perhaps, but as a

system moved up, well the wind would change from say southwest and during the day it would go northwest. But it meant that every hour it was accepted that he had to check up his wind, and that took a bit of manoeuvring and took a bit of time to do what they called a three course wind. That meant that you flew three courses.

Say you were going due north, then he would take a drift on due north, then you’d turn sixty degrees to port. He’d take a drift on that course, then you’d go back sixty degrees to starboard. Now it was the old, do you remember the triangle of forces?

Well the triangle of forces was, if you could plot

a triangle, and you had two fixed sides, and you had one factor for the third side, either a direction or a distance you could sort of intersect that and that would give you your distance or the course, whichever was the missing factor. Now by doing that three times he could virtually plot three triangles and

he’d have nine, he’d have six out of the nine answers. But by plotting them on one another and I’ve got a, the old Douglas protractors there that the navigators, oh that were used for navigation. And by plotting those three you would get the third side of the triangle and that would give you the wind speed and the direction.

And he could then work out well if you want to fly that track, what course have you got to fly? And he’d give you the course to fly to maintain that track. But that meant that he would be scratching away and an hour’d go by again and god we’ve got to do it again, so takes his three drifts again, works it all out again and he gives you a new course. And you maintain that course

until he tells you different. But that meant that every ten miles you went you had to change course. Come back again at a different course, back again. And that was the creeping line ahead, that you would stay five miles ahead of the convoy. Now if he said, “Give me a box,” you would do much the same thing, but that meant that every course had to be separately calculated because it would be different in relation to the

convoy. To maintain your position in relation to his, you had to allow 1) for the convoy speed, and 2) how does the effect of the wind change on each course you want. So he worked hard, and all you did was change course every time he told you. And that was that. But you can imagine doing that all day,

it got a bit wearing after a while.

The navigators on coastal command were excellent, they were really good. All they had was their protractor, their flame floats, as they called them, to take drifts on, his parallel ruler and a pencil.

That was it, his equipment. No radio aids, no contact with shore, just on his own DR they called it, dead reckoning, and he’d do that all day. That’s all he had, they had to be good.

You had to calculate it. He’d have to calculate the wind speed

and direction from taking his three drifts and plotting it on this protractor they called it, Douglas protractor. He’d calculate that, and then from that he’d calculate well if you want to maintain, say you wanted to maintain a track of two seventy, which is due west, and he calculated, oh gee he’s got a wind from the south east at five knots.

That means he’s got to give you a course a bit short of due west because the winds going to throw you over five knots. So he calculates all that, no help from anyone or anywhere, with just his pencil. He has a rubber too. It’s amazing. One of his jobs, the next day after you finished the trip, he’d have to

re-plot that to make sure. Every time he’d give you a change of course, he’d put it in his log, you know, oh three thirty course so and so and he’d note alongside it wind speed and direction. And his job the next day would be to take that log re-plot that and make sure he’s done it right. He’d have to check that up the next day,

so they were good.

Oh yeah, depending on the size of the convoy and maybe its speed. Usually you were on your own, but if the conditions warrant it, you might have two aircraft. So your job

would be across the front and up the port side, and the other bloke’s job would be across the back and up the starboard side. So that was the third possibility, but very rarely any different to that. But oh, you’d get various instructions, I mean he might have reason to believe that there is a sub at ten miles on such and such a degree.

He’d give you that, he’d say ,“Sub reported,” or, “Sub suspected. Please investigate,” so you’d go off your ten-mile and investigate. If he was there he had probably submerged anyway but that wasn’t too bad because that meant that he was submerged and falling further and further behind the convoy, so that had its uses. But usually if they

had enough escorts and you reported anything you detached and one of the escorts or two if he had enough, to go and search that area. So what you were doing was really an observing and reporting aircraft.

Yeah, the same up to a point. You had two engineers and their responsibility was the daily inspection, as they called it and reporting any faults and if it was within their capacity they’d fix them. But if it was anything of a major nature well the ground crew had to worry about that. But the main job of the engineers in the air,

they had control of the fuel, the engine performance, the oil pressures and temperatures whereas ordinary, Sunderlands had that too, an engineer to do that, but you take a Wellington or whatnot, the poor old pilot had to do that himself. I say the pilot in the Catalina was a gentleman’s

job.

Well, all you had to do as the pilot, was fly the thing, you had crew to do everything else. You had a wireless ops had to look after their own radio, the navigator looked after the SC [air and surface warning] as they called it, the radar, the engineers had to look after the engine performance. You just made sure that they knew

what they were doing and you just flew the thing yourself. You had a lot less to worry about than say Wellington pilots or Hudson pilots who had to worry about their fuel you know, had two tanks on the port side, two on the starboard side, cocks for each of them, a pump that you could pump to anywhere or from anywhere or from anywhere to either engine. So that was all the engineers worry, in the

other aircraft you’d be worrying about that yourself.

No, no I didn’t.

Didn’t take long to learn. Plus the fact that you had four bunks and a stove, you had all modern home conveniences, and a toilet if you needed it.

All right, let’s start from the nose. You had a gun placement in the nose, a turret as they called it, but you didn’t

have a turret as say a Hudson or a Wellington. You’d take the top off, the fuselage and you’d stand up there, or the navigator would stand in the slipstream, that was in the nose. Then you had a bulkhead just behind that, it was about four or five foot long I suppose. The bulkhead and then the pilots’ compartment. You walk through

the passageway with the two pilots sitting up around about this high. They’d be sitting up here. This big yoke across with a wheel on each side, that’s the pilots’ position. Each one had a set of flying instruments, you know the artificial horizon, which was the instrument that you flew by day and night. You never worried about the

horizon as you did when you started to fly, didn’t worry about that. You just relied on the artificial horizon. Then climb and bank and whatnot, you each had those, you didn’t have any engine dials as you would have in other aircraft, they were all up above with the engineer. So that’s the pilots’ compartment, about another four or five feet,

another bulkhead. Now the next compartment was on the right hand side, the radios and the wireless op's position, on the left hand side a fair sized navigation table for the navigator and his position, and sitting on that was the radar screen, with a separate seat, and one of the wireless op's

would use that radar screen with the navigator beside him. Another bulkhead, now you’re into the bunk compartment as we call it. Now just at the back of that bulkhead was a little ladder on the bulkhead, and if you look at that model you see a little window between the fuselage and the wing, well that’s the engineers position. He sits up there on his seat and in front of

him is all his instruments. Pressure, fuel gages, fuel pressure, all of that stuff to do with the engine. He also controls what they called the calves. At the back of each engine you had calves that would open up into the airflow and that was to cool the engine if necessary. He controlled those, and he would control those by the cylinder head temperature,

if it was getting too hot he’d open them up a bit and let the air flow through. Otherwise close them down because they create drag and take a few knots off your speed. Underneath him was the APU, auxiliary power unit, a little motor like a Victor mower, a little petrol mower that you start with a lead. By

starting that you got a generator on that, you use the generator for some power to start the engine. Again that’s the engineers job, you just push the switch in front of you, port engine, that’s the sign that you’ve got start the port engine. So he’s got everything up there to do that. He’d have started the APU before he got up there,

and the power coming from the generator, that power he uses to start the port engine. Then as soon as the engine starts he’s got a generator there, he doesn’t have to worry about that, he’ll start the engine off that one. And you can start them by hand, but boy are they a job. You’ve got a crank handle like a car, you get up on top of the wing,

put that in the side of the engine, and it takes two or three blokes to crank it up you know. And you don’t crank the propeller, you crank an energiser and it’s like a fly wheel that you get going and then he measures that and that will start, the engine will get going. But it’s a terrible job to start by hand. Never do that unless you have to. But that’s the engineer, underneath him was the stove,

which will operate if you’re in flight it will operate off the engine generators, if you want to operate it on the ground you got to start the APU to get the generator going, to get the generator going to give you power on the stove. And behind that there’s four bunks, two on either side, upper and lower, well they never got used in flight. They’re there mainly if you get what’s called boat guard.

If you got sort of a hurricane or what, or really bad weather, you’ve got to have a couple of blokes on board, they can live there, then that’s the bunk compartment. You then come to those two blisters on the back. In each of those is a mounting for a point five gun, so you’ve got those there, and while you’re on patrol there’ll be a bloke there,

two doing the watching and whatnot. Another bulkhead and then you’re into the tail section, where it comes up under the tail. Now in that section there is a hatch in the floor. You can open that and that’s where the navigator does his drift sights. He’s got a drift sight there, so he goes back, opens it up and that’s where he throws out his flame

float, night time, that hits the water and bursts a flame. So he takes his drift on that. Daytime he’s got an aluminium marker, he throws that and it will burst when it hits the water, and give him a mark on the water to take his drift sight on. The thing is that with a drift sight you’re steering

your course, but of course that may not be the course over the water. You’ll be going that way, say you’ve got a wind coming in, well you’ll actually be going that way. So the thing with a drift sight is he measures the angle between what you’re steering and what you’re actually going. And that’s the one that he’s going to plot on his protractor and that’s the one that’s going to let him fill in the third side of his triangle

and give him the speed and direction of the wind. But of course a Catalina was no place for a lady. Eighteen hours you can imagine, there had to be some relief, and it was by a funnel that, in the blister that went down into the slipstream. The only thing, if the navigator had his hatch open taking a drift, it went out

and straight up. It was a cardinal rule that if the navigator went back to take a drift and he would leave the bulkhead open and nobody would. Everybody paid respect to the fact that he was in the tail. Catalina was no place for a lady.

We’re going for Gibraltar, hey?

Well at that stage, once France fell Gibraltar was the only place in Europe where England or the Allies had a foot, and it stayed that way until actually the Italian invasion about two or three years later. But the value of

Gibraltar was that it kept the western entrance to the Mediterranean open for the Allies and made the African operation possible, which was the forerunner to the rest of the operation into Europe. So it was an extremely important place. What was it, it was about a mile and a half of rock sticking straight out into the

Mediterranean, about a mile wide was the Mediterranean on this side and the bay, and the Atlantic on the other side. So it was extremely well placed right on the Spanish border. The rock as they called it had a bit blown off the end which they used to extend the runway, which was very similar to the Mascot

runway where it poked out into Botany Bay. But that was virtually the border between Gibraltar and Spain. The little village on the other side of the runway way Spanish and the main Spanish town was on the other side of the bay, which would be about equivalent to Miranda on Botany Bay. Very similar layout of it.

And then the navy was extremely active, they had their harbour against the rock in the virtual corner, the rock in Spain. And they serviced all their major Mediterranean ships there, so it was extremely busy in and out. But all the civilian population had been evacuated so it was a purely military set-up,

primarily air force and navy. The navy had their dockyard and for labour they used a, I suppose it was probably a thousand Spaniards. But they weren’t allowed to be on the rock overnight, at the end of the day they all went back across the border to the Spanish village of Algeciras.

And at daylight the boom on the border would go up and they’d flood in for the day’s work on the dockyard. And it seemed that that was the only place of employment around the place. The rest of Spain and the villages seemed to be very poverty stricken. But it was extremely interesting from the flying point of

view, it had its own characteristics. You flew from the bay. The main problem there was the swell of course, which almost invariably swept in from the Atlantic. And it was regarded as one of the roughest places for aircraft, flying boat operation. As a matter of fact one of the claims that Consolidated made for the Catalina

was that it was very, very useful in places like Gibraltar. That was sort of the yardstick that they accepted. So the operations from there were very, very important, besides the flying boat base, which was stationed actually inside the harbour was the main maintenance hanger and whatnot, but the aircraft were

anchored outside in the bay, unless they were due for major maintenance where they were brought in. But there were two or three squadrons based on north front as they called the runway. Wellingtons, Hudsons and later on they had some Liberators. But the value if the place I think was its use when the African invasion came on.

We were there, extremely busy of course with that operation, but we saw along the runway lined up a great number of crates. Like motorcar crates you used to see when they were importing cars in crates. And they turned out to be Spitfires. And they were there waiting to be put together

to be used in the African invasion. But as soon as they had an airport, oh an airstrip in Africa available, they were able to be flown across and operate immediately. So it had its uses and it was always thought you know, “Why didn’t Germany continue their march into France and knock off Gibraltar?” But

it appeared that the main objection to that was Franco and his Spaniards, who although they were meant to be neutral were actually pro-axis, and they wouldn’t agree to have the Germans marching down through Spain to take Gibraltar, so it didn’t happen. Not that the Spaniards would ever be able to stop them anyway.

But they didn’t think it worthwhile that the effort to take Gibraltar just couldn’t be done. So it remained there, there’s a little spot in Europe was the place of the Allies.

Well, that was rather peculiar because they were a bad bunch really. The main

town was Algeciras on the other side of the bay, and that was Spanish and definitely pro-axis. It was reputed they had what the called the Algeciras reporting station, and the Algeciras duty pilot, they called it.

And back in the UK in the intelligence they told us, “Look, we would know if you take off from here. We would know in the morning when you landed in Gibraltar by listening to the Algeciras duty pilot.” Before we got the message back through our own system. And the duty pilot was reporting every aircraft movement and every naval movement straight back to

the German high command. So by listening to the Algeciras duty pilot, intelligence in the UK always knew what was going on in Gibraltar. But there was one occasion there where a couple of the ships, all the freighters of course would come to Gibraltar which were quite numerous really, couldn’t be accommodated in the harbour so they had to stay out in the bay.

And over a period of a couple of weeks, a couple of them blew up. And it was found over in Algeciras they had a tanker, and from that tanker they were launching frogmen or miniature submarines who could come out into the bay and putting these sticky bombs onto these ships. Not long after

that there happened to be an explosion in Algeciras, rumour anyway, but there was a tanker there and it had blown up and burnt. I think that was probably right too. But the Spaniards were defiantly pro-axis. Portugal was neutral but pro-allies. And the instruction was if you are ever going to ditch

or get into trouble, always do it on the Portuguese side, don’t do it on the Spanish side. Because in Spain you’d finish up in the lock-up for the rest of the war. But in Portugal you’d be regarded as a ship-wrecked foreigner and they were entitled to give you every help possible and you’d be back in the UK overnight. Portuguese were regarded as friendly, Spanish were regarded as opposition.

No, we never bothered. You could get a day pass if you wanted to, but you could only got to La Linea, which was the little village or Algeciras or maybe a little bit further afield. But there was never any point in doing it, you were never welcome anyway. So I suppose

as soon as they reached Gibraltar, got a day pass to go to Spain, then decided no this is not worthwhile. So didn’t bother to do it again. So that didn’t happen, nobody bothered very much about it. But from the flying point of view it was very interesting. Different to most places,

would be swell or whatnot. The other thing almost all flying was off at night, back at night and you’d be out during the day. But the flare path we had there, you didn’t get much help in a flying boat with flare paths. It consisted of three dinghies with a light on, towed behind what we call a ‘pinnas’.

Because the bay was so deep that normally at other bases those dinghies would be anchored, but the bay was so deep they couldn’t be anchored, so they were towed behind a pinnas at about two hundred yards intervals, I suppose. So all you got for a flare path was a line of four lights, three dinghies and a pinnas lined up. And that just gave you a bit of direction and an indication -

“Stay on the right of that and you’ve got a clear run.” But that was all the runway you got, either take-off or landing. But that was all right, you didn’t need anything else anyway. Because you couldn’t use lights the same as they did on runways on water, you couldn’t use landing lights of the aircraft, they just sort of reflected off the water.

You just took-off in the dark and watched the instruments and made sure you were lined up in the right place and that was that. But landing was a different technique all together. You didn’t try to fly onto the water. You would set up at the landing speed of say sixty knots was the landing speed,

descending at say two hundred feet per minute and sixty knots and two hundred feet a minute and you’d just sit there and wait until you hear the swish of water underneath and know you were down. So you never tried to judge the water at night, never tried to fly on even in the brightest moonlight, because you couldn’t judge your height. So you just sat there and waited

to hit the water. A bit hazardous at night sometimes because you still had this throw off tendency of the swell, but you just sat there as they say for a stall landing and just held it there until it logged on again with the lack of flying speed to be thrown off again. The

damage on take-off I suppose you’d have to say was fairly prevalent for a minor damage or rivets popping out or whatnot. But major damage was a bit rare, it did happen, but a bit rare.

Well, you’d get, see the metal on the Cat was,

on the ferry was fairly flimsy but extremely strong. But if you did do anything you either bent one of the major stringers as they called it, or you would split the hull as we did on one occasion one night, but we were lucky enough that the same bounce that split the hull was enough to throw

us into the air, so we did stay up. So that was all right except that it was mighty draughty for the trip as you could imagine. With about a six or seven foot split underneath and caused a bit of bother to land, but the dinghies, you always carried two dinghies for emergencies. So the idea was to

shut off those bulkheads, before and after it happened on the sort of, behind the bulkhead in the middle between the navigator and the blister. So the idea was to inflate the dinghies in there, tie them down so that when you landed at least you could close off those two bulkheads and get a bit of buoyancy.

So that was done, and as soon as the lander touched down and stopped they had two work boats which were pretty solid boats came in underneath the wings, and that with the dinghies inside gave us enough buoyancy to get up into the harbour and up onto the shore. So

there were a couple of occasions, one of them wasn’t so lucky, one of them didn’t get off, it sank on take-off. That was a bit of a tragedy because I think one or two of them were trapped inside when it sank and couldn’t get out. But they weren’t, didn’t happen very often, wouldn’t need to.

So that was, you know Gibraltar was such a self-contained place, it had been set up, the navy ran the place. They ran Gibraltar, the air force fitted in, the army didn’t have much of a show at all. They had a few anti-aircraft batteries and a few other batteries but it was primarily navy and air force. And of course it was only eight or nine

miles across to the African coast. And the navy had their guns, a couple of ten or twelve inch guns up on the rock and they could cover the lot. So the straight was virtually blocked off to the enemy shipping at all.

Yes, a fair bit I suppose.

Even they gave us a few opportunities to do some exercises with them on the subs. We went out with them on the submarines and after one trip you just decided, no, you never want that on. And they’d come up with us on a similar trip and they’d make the same decision, “No chance. We’ll stay with the subs, we wouldn’t want this on.”

Yeah, we had a fair liaison with the navy except at night, because they didn’t give us much consideration. If any ships came into the bay at night, because of this bombing, they didn’t anchor, they just moved around all night. And the navy didn’t bother much if they got in our way, or if they crossed,

what would be our runway or whatever. So we found that they weren’t too co-operative in that regard. But generally, yes we got on very well with the navy and had a fair liaison with them. I must say that they controlled the harbour and the boom, that boom would go up at sunset and nothing would move until daylight. Didn’t matter what happened in the harbour that boom stayed closed.

And once or twice they found this mini sub business from Algeciras attempting to make an entry I suppose, something like they did in Sydney Harbour. But they used to through the night drop a few, they had small depth charges. And they used to patrol the boom, the bay and drop a few of those just to make sure nobody was going to

interfere with their boom overnight. But that caused of course, the aircraft had to be anchored outside and we had a little area between the harbour and that extended runway and that was the aircraft anchorage, and they’d be there ready for use during the night.

No, no we didn’t have

that trouble at all. Of course there was also work boaters, a dingy there was always a dingy on duty, in the anchorage. So it was always you had a watchman on there, it was never unattended.

Well, it’s a bit odd where you get involved sort of in your own little backyard, your own operation. And it’s not until afterwards when you can put the whole picture together and you can realise where you fitted in

and what happened. As far as we were concerned we were doing these anti-sub patrols and we were doing shipping convoys, and what happened on the side of that you weren’t aware of. But when you got the intelligence report, which were always involved in the intelligence section, you could get an idea of what was going on and where you fitted in. We were involved

over a fairly long period with, the Battle of the Atlantic went on for years. But it was never sort of recognised, I don’t think it was realised generally for the importance it had, or sort of how it ebbed and flowed, and where everybody fitted in, in their own sort of operations. Sort of the Sunderlands operating from Mount Batten,

and the Hudsons operating from Scottish bases and whatnot. Everybody in their own little area. But looking back on it, I got a little bit interested just to see well, where all this did fit together. And I’m sure that it’s not generally recognised how close it came to being a disaster. And

the great effect it had on the whole operation of the European war. You see it started I think the first shot of the war was fired in the Atlantic, because it was only the day or so after war was declared that the first ship was sunk. And that was the first operation in the whole of the war. And from there it just sort of

increased in operations, and it wasn’t until I think you’d say 1943 that it was declared, “Well, we mightn’t have won it, but we haven’t lost it.” But on several occasions and if you look back on it the damage that was done was staggering. You know they started

off, can I give you a bit of history on it?

Well, I became involved in it in the middle of 1942. At 1940 of course, was a pretty disastrous

year, but the Germans only had about eighty or ninety subs to put into operation, and of those there were only about a third out at any one time, so that wasn’t so bad. But by 1943, when it reached its crescendo they had over three hundred with more than half of them on patrol at

one time. But it went through the phases of 1940 and England was so short of escort vessels, the damage was comparatively great. Then 1941, when America came into the war, that was a terrible time, because they didn’t adopt the convoy

situation, they were running all their ships up and down the coast just singly. And the whole of the German submarine fleet moved over to the American side and made a killing for the first six months of 1942, after the Americans had come in. So that relieved the pressure on the UK, you know on the Atlantic for 1941.

Then 1942 you have submarine fleet had built up and by the time I got interested in it flying from Gibraltar the losses were pretty heavy. And the German, Doenitz, Admiral Doenitz was in charge of the submarine warfare. He had set a target of six hundred

thousand tons a month, he maintained, “If we can sink six hundred thousand tons a month we’re ahead.” They can’t replace that quantity. It was not only the ships you had to worry about, it was what was in them. You lose six hundred thousand tons of shipping there is all that manufacture gone for nothing. And 1942,

they were reaching just on that, five to six hundred thousand tons for a couple of months in 1942. And we were flying from Gibraltar, that was a pretty busy time. I think, I didn’t do any more than anybody else but I think I did twenty-eight trips in just the six or seven months that

I was there. That was a fair amount, that was five hundred flying hours which was a fair amount for that time. But 1942, things were improving a bit as far as convoy escorts were concerned, and aircraft because we were getting further out into the Atlantic, but still had that gap in the middle,

and that’s where all the damage occurred. In the un-patrolled area of the Atlantic. Went on to the end of 42 of course and then we all knew something was going to happen with the African invasion. Nobody knew quite what or where but the activity was pretty clear. And then in November 1942

the African invasion happened. The convoys were increasing in number coming across, and everybody knew something was building up, and then of course in November ‘42 that African invasion took place. There was a very large convoy came across from America, and the Americans

landed at Casablanca. And the whole plan was the Americans would land at Casablanca on the African, Atlantic side, then the main operation would take place in the Mediterranean. There was Oran, about three hundred miles from Gibraltar, in the Mediterranean. That was going to be one landing area, the next one was going to be

Algiers, a couple of hundred miles on. There was to be one at Tunisia, which was further on. The British wanted to stage one at Tunisia as we read afterwards but the Americans considered that was too difficult for the distance of supply and they insisted, “Well, we’re going to have a landing

on the African coast because we don’t want to be confined to just the Mediterranean side.” If the Germans were active enough to close off Gibraltar and the Mediterranean will have no source of supply other than overland from Casablanca. So they insisted on having a landing at Casablanca. But I remember well,

the morning of that invasion. We were on the Mediterranean side to do the convoy escort there. And through the Gibraltar Strait, it must have been near on a hundred ships, and there’d been two convoys come down

from the UK, and they had rendezvous off the Spanish coast and the whole thing came through the Gibraltar Strait together. And what staggered us was there were two lots, there was the troop ships had come down as one convoy because they were fairly fast, and there was the supply ships had come down as the second one. They were slower. And the whole thing had

rendezvous out in the Atlantic and came through. And the number of ships that we recognised was quite remarkable you know. All the ships that came out here, there were a couple of Orient Lines, a couple of P&O [Peninsular & Orient], a couple of the bay ships. I suppose there seemed to be about a third or a half of the convoy was made up of ships that we were familiar with from Sydney Harbour.

But there were no mishaps, none of them were lost and they went up to Oran and split off there, half to Oran and the rest went on to Algiers. What we didn’t realise was that we were watching virtually a dress rehearsal for the

invasion in Europe. It was just as well it happened, because I think there were some pretty serious lessons learnt in arranging an invasion and whatnot. But it happened because Roosevelt was insistent that something had to be done in 1942. He had promised Stalin that, “Yes, we’ll do something

to relieve the pressure on you, in 1942.” Stalin was pressing for a second front in Europe. Churchill was resisting the second front in Europe until it was ready, but Roosevelt was insisting “Well, we’ve got to do something.”

Yep.

No, we didn’t have to change our tactics, I know they were from their pack attacks, but no, we didn’t have to change our tactics. We just carried

on doing what we were doing. And then I think it was the navy that had to make the major changes to their escorting and how they operated. And of course they were governed by what they had to operate with. No, we just carried on doing what we were doing.

The performance of the submarines. Any increases in, I suppose the same as aircraft,

the time that they could stay submerged, the depth that they could go to which was improving all the time of course. Mainly the intelligence on what actually happened, you know. How many were lost, how they were operating, whether they were operating in packs, whether were operating singly. Where you would be

likely to find them, because they were able to be tracked to some extent by that radio tracking that I mentioned yesterday. So you’d have a fair idea of where the activity was going on, where they’d be likely to operating next and what they were aiming for. So you’d get that sort of intelligence, keep up with the

losses really. What attacks had been taken place, what they’d found. We did find in 1942 that they could receive our radar. That was one of the big improvements that took place for 1943, that they could no longer, the radar had been improved to such an extent that they could no longer receive those transmissions, so we didn’t have to worry about that.

You could locate one, well if you know you have some opportunity of catching him on the surface before he knew, had become aware of your presence. So you get pretty fair intelligence of what was going on with their improvements.

No, I mentioned that it was rather disheartening to be doing the job day after day of patrolling and whatnot seemingly for a nil return. But it certainly must have had some effect due to the fact that losses where there was air cover was minimal. Without air cover they increased.

Yeah. We felt, oh well, it must be worthwhile in some direction. Because there was a lot of hours spent without a direct result, and that was shown some time later, I read a report of a hundred and twenty thousand sorties in coastal command eight hundred thousand hours flown,

for what return? Almost you’d say a minimal return for subs destroyed, but a maximum return for convoys protected.

No. No, we were very fortunate for the number of losses, they were very few. And any losses that occurred were more accidents than enemy action.

No, nobody seemed to worry about that, it was just there and that was the way it was. It was the sort of sense, “Well, the rock’s been here since…and that’s the way it will be. It will just stay that way.” Nobody sort of thought that it was terribly important that we keep this

thing going, it was just assumed well, it’ll be here you know, it’s going to stay.

Yes, I think everybody was aware that this was a pretty important place to have and it’s got to be there, but it will be there so we don’t have to worry about that.

Well, we thought it was a bit primitive to be honest. The 42 Squadron was up in Arnhem Land was, we mentioned,

nothing permanent about it, you know, the mess was a tin roof and gravel floor. Made up of palm thongs, that was all it was in the mess. The living conditions were a bit primitive although we managed to improve them somewhat by

getting a heap of timber. One of the operations you went down to a place called West Bay, where you refuelled from the drums, and when the ships came in they, between the drums they had this dudage as they called it, and it was timber about six inch by one inch planks. And on one occasion

the crew loaded the aircraft up with a heap of these planks, took them back to Melville Bay. The officers had one tent, the sergeants had another tent, but we had enough timber to give ourselves a board floor and you know, improve things a bit. But as far as the operation and the flying personnel, the operations were totally different. We were finished with convoy

escort and whatnot, and the operations there were mine laying and ships patrols and whatnot. But the war had moved up and it was almost a bit of a backwater behind the operations. But as far as normal operations are concerned it didn’t make much differ as far as control and organisation

and running etcetera, they were very similar, very similar.

Yes.

Again it didn’t seem to make much difference because once you were away from home it didn’t matter where you were. I suppose there was a bit more satisfaction in operating closer to home and being occupied in that

operation, which was a home operation really. So yes, it was much better being close enough to have some effect here.

No, not at that stage. Not when I came home, that threat was over. And the whole move was going forward so

I suppose the worry and strain in that regard was taken off. That wasn’t going to happen, the thought of invasion had passed.

Yeah.

Yes. They

turned out to be pretty long operations and it seemed a bit odd that we would be doing these things based in Melville Bay because the first lot that we, the local lot we did, I think about six, was from Melville Bay you had about a two and a half hour flight over to Darwin,

you’d pick up mines over at Darwin. You’d have another three-hour flight down to West Bay, which was on the north coast and Truscott was the strip, and we used the bay and used their facilities for refuelling etcetera. So that was a three-hour flight. Then up to

either Java or Borneo to lay the mines, that would be about sixteen or seventeen hours up and back to west bay. Then back to Darwin, possibly do the same thing again, or on a couple of occasions, no back to West Bay. And then on the next occasion you’d start all over

again. So the whole operation was spread over about three or four days, and you’d do something like about thirty hours flying. But that’s the way they wanted it. The navy requested what they wanted by way of mines laid and that was the only way that the air force could get something with enough range to do what the navy wanted.

So that was the way they were done, but the actual mine laying well you’d say, “Well, that’s a bit of a Heath Robinson operation.” It consisted of picking on the datum point, they’d nominate the datum point, and that would be a sort of point on the coast or in the bay or whatever

you were going to do. And your method would be down to three hundred feet, you dropped the mines from three hundred feet. The navigator would open that front turret, he’d be out there in the slipstream and his job was to guide you, this is what you want to know, is it?

He would guide you onto the datum point, your job

was to be flying the right course as laid down, because the whole thing was designed on flying over that datum point at a set speed. And where the mines were needed or to be laid would be worked out well in a matter of timing, half a minute or fifty seconds or a minute and a half to drop them in the place they were

needed. And at three hundred feet they would drop with a parachute and just float down. But they wouldn’t have too much forward speed, didn’t make a great deal of difference really. So what you had, the navigator before you’d go there he’d work out the time lapse that in those conditions, again the wind

had an effect on the air speed, so all that had to come into it. So he’d work out the time lapse between the datum and the first mine, and the time lapse between the second, third and fourth. We usually had four five hundred pounds I think, mines to lay. So he’d work that out. The second pilot would have his stopwatch

and they had the toggles to release the mines. So when everything was set up and you came over the datum point the nav would call “Datum,” the second pilot would start his stopwatch and at the intervals he’d pull the toggle and drop the mines. And you know it was all sort of done by sight and sound I suppose you’d say.

So that’s how we operated.

Four.

Yes. I think it would be two thousand pounders or four by five hundred. And then of course the type of mine varied, you could have a magnetic or a sonic. And the magnetic, detonators were

fixed to respond to the magnetic field of a ship passing by. And the sonic they’d be set to be set off by the sound of a ship going by. So that made it more difficult for the minesweepers to know what they were doing, which one. And the value of the mining they told us was

not only the ships that may be destroyed by it but the fact that they were there, so they had to be avoided, and they had to be swept and that meant closing off the harbour, or whatever it was, for a day or two or whatever, and interfering with their shipping program. But you didn’t hear anything as a result of it, you know you just

laid them and that was that. Whether they did any damage or whatnot. Then we also did some in the Philippines. Went off as a detachment to the Philippines and operated from Jinamoc which was in the Leyte Gulf. That was the first area that the Americans landed when they landed in the Philippines, and the operation there was to operate from

Jinamoc, which was on the south of Mindanao Island. Then up to Mangarin where the Americans had a seaplane tender anchored in the Mangarin Bay. Refuel there and then go across to the Chinese coast to Hainan Island. And the object of that was to put the mines

into a channel which they were using between the mainland and Hainan Island, and by mining that channel you could force their shipping to take the route out into the ocean. And become a target for the American submarines, and apparently that operated quite well. And that was also the object of Borneo and Leyte

Strait. There was the same situation where if you could block up that strait the Japanese shipping would have to use the sea route and of course at that stage this was interfering greatly with the Japanese source of supply. Because they depended on almost everything to come from the East Indies, you know

what is now Indonesia. I think they depended on that for petrol, fuel, oil particularly and that was one of the things they suffered from in the end was lack of fuel for ships and aircraft. So it did have some effect.

You got a bit weary and a bit fatigued I suppose, but it was just a matter of course I suppose, you just carried on.

Oh yes, you had the opportunity of moving about quite a bit although on

patrol you didn’t much, everybody maintained their position. The wireless ops changed over consistently but the pilots and that were stuck in their position. But you could move around a bit but you didn’t worry too much. It was I suppose you’d say the worst part, the most difficult part was when you finished for the day and you had another couple of hours

to do on the way back. You’d feel that that’s that you know, relax a bit, and then you’d have another couple of hours and you’d think, “Oh gee.” I’d say that’d be the most dangerous time, you’d start thinking, “Is this thing ever going to end? What are you here for?

Will I ever get back home?” Sorry...

Yes, you look down the old logbook, and you see the odd twenty hours, generally between sixteen and eighteen would be the time. But what you flew you were there when the sun came up, and are you still going to be there when it goes down again?

Yes, always. Yeah. I suppose there wouldn’t be too many aircraft watching the sun come up and watching it go down again, would there?

Yeah, that was the only stage that we mixed with them, was the attacks from the Philippines. Didn’t see anything else of them, didn’t operate from any areas where they were operating from as a lot of our coves did. You know the Australian squadron would be on the same airfield as the American squadrons

and have pretty close operations. But we didn’t have much contact at all other than in the Philippines.

Well, our impression was that they did things pretty well for themselves, you know they always had ice cream. That seemed to be their number one priority, was that have ice-cream and what, their stores.

Not the NAAFI [Navy Army Air Force Institute] was the English stores, on the base. PX [Post Exchange – American canteen unit], that’s it, they always had everything in their PX stores that you could want. In the way of sweets, chocolate bars, ice creams, all of that stuff. But as far as operation was concerned, we found that ok.

Operationally, they seemed to be well on top of things to arrange re-fuelling and all the things you needed, they were all there and done in a quite efficient manner. There was no problem with that. No sort of sullenness or whatever, they were quite efficient, and operated quite well.

No, no we didn’t. No, there was no feeling between them, the bit we had with them was quite amicable. Quite.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

We didn’t get close enough or have enough to do with them to sort of feel the same way as a lot of Australians that operated with them during the war, you know, “Don’t really need you blokes.” We wouldn’t have been there if they didn’t need us.

Yes, I think I’d have to say yes to that that, there was a bit of a feeling that we were sort of in

a backwater. Wasn’t up with the main operation except that bit we did in the Philippines, yeah. But the other around Java and Borneo and that was just washing up, just cleaning up the mess at the end. But I know that other squadrons yeah they felt that quite strongly,

particularly some of the Liberator squadrons from the blokes I’ve talked with felt, we got a bit of a rough deal. But then in a way it was probably brought on ourselves because I think the insistence was that the Australian squadrons would be controlled by the Australians, that was the air control in eastern area. And for an operation

to take place with an Australian squadron, it had to go to the control to the area control and back to the squadrons. So if they were wanted on operations it would go back there and then up there. But they felt that they weren’t right in the front line action. I can understand that.

Well, we didn’t mind it, we didn’t mind it.

Once the war had finished, you know VP [Victory in the Pacific] day we became virtually a transport flight, and did quite a bit then. Up to Labuan and Balikpapan and up into the Borneo area.

Well, we did stir up a bit of a hornets nest at Subic Bay.

We went up to Subic Bay to lay mines at the entrance to the harbour. And Norm our navigator, that was the only error that I knew he made, that he picked the wrong datum point and we got much closer up to the harbour entrance than we should have been, and as soon as we came in over the datum point we had a heap of search lights

came up and what we were really over the navy anchorage. With a couple of ships down there and these search lights. But we were at three hundred feet and the object was just to drop straight onto the water and high tail it out of there. They couldn’t do much about it because at that height if they had taken a shot at us they’d have probably shot some of their own. So we high tailed it out of there

pretty smart. Went back and started again, and we should have been about four or five miles further down the harbour. So we did the job all right, put them down where they should have been.

Oh, he was most irate that he would make such an error. I didn’t blame him of course, you know, it’s a bit difficult in the dark.

Although it’s surprising how the shoreline shows out on a dark night. You get that fluorescent sort of a line around the shoreline so you can pick the contours, but of course one looks like another.

Oh no, just a ribbing that was all.

No. No.

Yes, you would, you’d start thinking about what’s going on at home, just the people at home and whatnot. I think I could say that’d be the

time you would really would feel homesick. You’d be just sitting there and feel you’re not on earth and you’re not in heaven, where are you? It’s the most detached sort of feeling is when you relax at night, and you’re just sitting there with the engines churning away, you know, lots of noise going on, just thinking about these

things. Most detached.

No, you just assumed whatever happens always happens to somebody else, not to you.

Well I,

you know quite a few things could have been otherwise. That accident I had in Darwin Harbour, when I put my head in the way of that prop, that could have easily been otherwise, I was so fortunate there. I feel with a Hudson it could have been otherwise, I sort of

just nominated Catalinas and finished up in Catalinas where you could have easily finished up in bomber command on 460 Squadron or one of those that had such dreadful casualties. But it wasn’t my doing, it just sort of happened. You know sort of got what you wanted, why you wanted it, you didn’t really know but as it turned out

it was really good for me. So I think fate does help. Although I must say there’s, I don’t think there was a pilot that wasn’t in some way religious. When you started off flying Tiger Moths the rule was when the instructor handed over and wanted you to fly

he’d say, “Handing over.” You had to reply, “Taking over,” then it was quite clear who was operating. When you’d say, “I’ll take it,” he’d say, “Handing over,” and you’d say, “Taking over.” So it was quite clear that it had gone to him. And there was an adage among pilots, “Handing over to JC [Jesus Christ],” and I think the attitude was

“I’ll do what I can, from then on it’s over to you mate.” I don’t think, although jokers talk hardy and whatnot, I don’t think there was anyone that didn’t feel at times, “Well, I’ll rely on you.”

No, I don’t think you did, I think you did it spontaneously every now and again. But I thought, well, I got confirmed in Gibraltar when I was there, because I was never an Anglican I was only a sporadic churchgoer until I met Betty, and then I had to be regular. But I started

going up to the cathedral with Ian Stockwell, he was the RAF joker that I was particularly friendly with. And the cannon up there just nailed us one day, talking about what we were doing or whatnot. And he said, “Why don’t you come and get confirmed?” And I said, “Well, I’ve never been through this.” And he said, “That’s all right. If that’s what you want you can come up

and have a couple of sessions and you can be confirmed in the cathedral.” And I thought, “Well, that’s a good idea.” I suppose in one way you could say the idea if it works that’s good, if it doesn’t well nothings lost you know.

Yeah, yeah. I think it worked.

I’d also say that there were times that you took a bit of confidence that well you mightn’t be on your own after all.

No, no. It was just, although I’d say every time before night take-off everybody was a

bit concerned for themselves. Every night it was different, something different happened. You’d lay awake at night and think, well ok, if this happens what do you do? How do you handle that? Just to be assured well whatever happens well you’ve already thought about that, because it wasn’t so much an action you had to have a reaction.

That was one of the great things about training I think, they taught you to react. Once you had to think of everything you did that became very onerous, so you got yourself into a stage to -“Well, whatever happens I’ve got a reaction.” I’ve been through that, been through that in your mind a dozen times, so you know what you’re going to do,

you know what the reaction was.

Yep, yep. What can you strike? One engine stops, what’s the drill? What have you got to do? How do you handle that? And you go through that a number of times. Even after training you do those sort of things

you do on occasions just to make sure, yeah you knew what to do what to go through.

Yeah, yes you did. One of the things that really bothered you, I suppose. “What a terrible thing it would be if something happens

and it’s my fault if I don’t cope?” And we come to grief, if it’s enemy action well that might be different. “But what if it’s my fault?” And you can’t help thinking about that and particularly with the crew in the aircraft, you think, “Oh boy, got to make sure everything

is right. I don’t want to be responsible for doing something to somebody else.” I think everybody felt that way.

Yes, yes. Most people had something

they wanted to be superstitious about. I shouldn’t say most, a lot did, but not everybody. I don’t think I had anything particular, I didn’t carry a rabbit’s foot or anything of the sort. But in another way yes, I did because before I went away we had a picnic with Sid Brown and his wife down at

Leura I think it was, and I had a little picture of Betty and myself on the beach there, sitting on a rug and that was in a wallet. That never went out of the pocket. Still got it as a matter of fact,

the wallet with the picture in it.

Yeah, Brian Tait, the cove I flew with for the initial trip, he had a pipe. And that was his sort of omen. Never went out without his pipe. And never took-off

until he’d lit his pipe and had a few puffs, then he’d put it up on the dash, do his take-off and phew, have his pipe again. That was the most obvious one I can remember, I don’t remember any of the others though. Those sort of things, but he was never without his pipe.

Oh, I see, yeah.

We had a rule, never any alcohol of course,

Never any alcohol but we had a rule, a cup of tea, cup of tea every two hours. That was Nobby Brett’s job,

drawer up a cup of tea every two hours and pass it around. Everybody appreciated their tea.

Usually tinned food, bully beef or herrings in tomato sauce or something of that nature, you know tinned.

And bread of course, lots of bread. And occasionally you might spread it a bit and have eggs. In Gibraltar we were fortunate, we virtually had everything in the food line, meat and whatnot. It would come from over the border and greens, vegetables from over the border,

eggs came generally from Lyautey in North Africa, because Lyautey was the diversion place for Gibraltar. There was a river there at Lyautey, it was about forty miles down the coast on the African side, and there was a river there that was suitable for landing, so if there ever was an occasion

in Gibraltar was too rough to come back and land, you were diverted to Lyautey. But they also used it as a victualling depot, so every week or so there’d have to be an aircraft, would have to do a trip down to Lyautey to survey the landing area, make sure everything was right. And of course in doing so there was no difficulty in bringing back a

load of eggs or meat or whatever was required. So we were always well and it was the only place in Europe I think that had white bread. Everybody else was using wheatmeal and brown bread and whatnot. But the navy had built up a stock of flour against, not an invasion, anyway

we always had white bread. And going back to UK we always took back lemons and bananas because they never saw a lemon or a banana. All the bananas used to come from South America and they were cut off of course. And lemons used to come from, oh the continent or Israeli area apparently

but even some years after that Jock Cooper, our second pilot came out some years after. And he’d never seen an orange growing on a tree, never seen an orange tree. So the popular thing used to be to take back the lemons and bananas and I used to take them back and stay with Betty’s aunt who had a place down there. She was a very hardened church worker,

and I’d take her back a couple of dozen lemons. She’d put half a dozen in a basket with a ribbon and raffle it for the church. So that was always popular. So we didn’t ever need for anything, but flying we usually took tinned stuff or whatever.

Yes, we did once, on the Mira Flores trip. We anchored there and did what we had to do. And then when we

came to get going again we had trouble with the generator and just couldn’t get it going. So the two engineers took the handle and they had a go, and then the two wireless ops took over and had a go and by that time there was enough sort of spin on the fire wheel to get it started. But you don’t do it voluntarily,

you’ve really got to do it to make it work.

Yeah, that’s right, directed the operation, yeah. Just made sure nobody fell in or whatever.

Oh, it was

to take a couple of army chaps and a Japanese interpreter to, Mira Flores is one of the little islands in the chain that runs from Timor along to Java. And at that stage of course, the Japanese had various occupation forces I suppose and they had all had to be dealt with separately. So our job was to take the army chaps and the

Japanese interpreter along and virtually accept the surrender and make some arrangement for the evacuation of the Japanese back to Japan. And it was only a couple of hours along. But when we got along there the harbour there, or the bay, was an extinct volcano, so it was extremely deep and we couldn’t find anywhere to anchor.

So for the first day the second pilot and one of the engineers had to stay on the aircraft, let it drift over to the other side, then start the engines and bring it back again. But the Japanese were found, what would you say, obsequious I suppose, you know they were so anxious to please. The labourers seemed to be Koreans, huge jokers.

So a couple of those were deputised to get a concrete block take it out and drop it just off the shore, far enough to allow us to anchor the Catalina. So that was done, how they handled that I don’t know, but whatever the Japanese said had to be done, that was done and they did it. But the interesting part of it was the invitation

we had up to the children’s home, which was up in the hills behind where we were on the shore. I think it was a Catholic organisation, one of the nuns or somebody came down and invited the crew and the army chaps up. The children wanted to put on a welcoming show.

Unfortunately we didn’t worry about it during the day, everybody seemed to be busy with what they were doing. It wasn’t until about five or six that night, we thought, “Oh, well we’ll go up and visit, about an hour or two up into the mountains.” And the children we found had been waiting all day with, a little concert was put on, and the nuns had given them speeches to make, and everybody was given a

bouquet of flowers. And we felt quite guilty because they had been waiting all afternoon. But the thing that surprised us was that it could still be there after all the couple of years of occupation by the Japanese, and they were still operating as they normally would. We didn’t think much about it at the time, but when you look back on it, it seems a bit peculiar. With all you’d heard about was the behaviour of Japanese

occupying these places. But that was very interesting. We stayed overnight in one of the huts, and came back the next morning, so it was quite interesting.

Yeah, yeah. They were you know, very pleased. I can remember we got there in time for lunch,

and there was a big spread out under the palm trees, and welcoming committee. Welcomers and, they seemed you didn’t know what to expect really. How are you going to treat these people? But you didn’t have to treat them at all really, it just rolled on. Language was a difficulty but the interpreter

seemed to take charge of that. And what the army coves did, I don’t know. I think that was a formality really, because nothing could change. They could just, I think they took a note of the number that were there that had to be transported back to Japan. Also had a look around, what

stores they had, what was needed if anything in the way of food or whatnot. And that was all that happened.

Yeah, they seemed to be as pleased as everybody else. I think there was a lot of Japanese that didn’t want to be in it anyway. They seemed

happy that they were going to go home.

No, no. No didn’t have any worry about that at all. Particularly the crew with the RAF,

because I had them for quite a while. But no, never any trouble. They seemed to be most efficient at their jobs.

No, they were on the job all the time. Didn’t need any discipline,

didn’t have any trouble with people not doing what they should be doing, or not doing it as well as they should be. Didn’t have any experience in that at all, quite efficient in what they were doing.

No, I think it occurred more

in bomber command and perhaps in fighter command, but we didn’t have any trouble. No, I didn’t know of anyone who had trouble that way.

Well, you didn’t really take a break, you were there all the time. And of course you had an automatic pilot, which was a must for a Catalina for those hours. It was generally accepted without an automatic pilot the aircraft was

U/S [Unserviceable], as they called it. Unserviceable, you didn’t fly it. Because it was just impossible for even two pilots to divide it and handle it, manhandle it for those hours. Seventeen to eighteen hours. It was a pretty heavy aircraft to handle. But no, you were generally satisfied to just be on the job, and watch what was going on.

On occasions I’d go back, number one leave the cockpit to Jock and he’d look after that. And I could relieve Bill Batham, our navigator for an hour or two, and he could have a bit of relax for an hour or so, know that everything was all right. So you shared it about a little bit and got a break that way. But I don’t think, it was virtually

no time you’d go back and relax on a bunk or something or other. And even sitting in the cockpit relaxed at night, the engine noise would only have to change the slightest and you’d be up, you know. You’d be conscious all the time of what was going on.

Well, when we were busy, which was most of the time, it was sort of a three-day cycle, today you would know you’d be on tonight. So today would be preparation, if you needed to do an air test you’d do that or whatever. The engineers would make sure

it was re-fuelled and mechanically ok. The navigator would do his part. So you’d be preparing for the flight that day. Then you get called about two hours before take-off, which meant you’d be called, the latest would be about three or four o’clock in the morning because it was usually a pre-dawn take-off.

Then out that day, that’d bring you back sort of latish that night. The next day you would have stood down. Then on quite a number of occasions you’d have one day off, then the next day you do another cycle. Then maybe have two or three days off and then the cycle would start again. And that was virtually the pattern on the squadron. The three-day

cycle for the trip, and one or two days in between. Then on occasions you might strike well there’s nothing to do for three or four days, but rarely more than four days. So you just got used to that cycle.

Well no, you only knew a slow

convoy or a fast convoy and how many ships, and its disposition. A convoy usually sailed a minimum of thirty-five ships, up to say fifty, and they usually sailed in five lines of seven or nine whatever it was. So that’s all you knew. You didn’t know what they had on or what they were. You knew they weren’t

troop ships, they wouldn’t be carrying troops. They’d all be freighters. And of course in those days they weren’t twenty-five to thirty thousand tons, the average was eight to ten thousand ton ships. So that’s all you knew, the number of ships in it, the configure of the convoy and its speed.

You mean sunk?

Occasionally, but there were very few in a convoy with air cover. But convoy without air cover, yes. 1941 was the worst time I think when they first introduced this pack attack. When they virtually

had the centre of the Atlantic to themselves. And on two occasions I think there were convoys almost decimated, you know most of the ships were sunk. But that happened on a couple of occasions. But yes, other convoys they’d lose two or three.

Over the whole time, reading the statistics, there was only between twenty to thirty per cent of ships lost that were sailing in convoy. And that included the ones that were without air cover which had most of the losses. But generally if it had air cover the losses were either nil or minimal. But a great

deal of the sinking, see ships could sail independently I think if they could maintain a speed of in excess of fifteen knots they had the option of sailing independently or sailing in convoy. If they were under fifteen knots it was almost mandatory that they sail in convoy. So a lot of ships sailing on their own were lost.

Not Roosevelt, Churchill.

Yes, that was on the HMS King George V, the battleship. From Gibraltar when he’d been to Marrakech. But it was just an ordinary job really, all you had to do was what the SNO [Senior Naval Officer], which of course on this

occasion was the captain of the KG V [King George V], just carry out the normal convoy duties that you would do normally, only at a greater speed of course.

Only a, not a real problem, only for keeping up with the wretched thing. It just meant that

you had to lay-off more for the forward travel then you would with an ordinary convoy.

Yeah. We weren’t told that but we knew, the word was around. “Well Churchill’s in Gibraltar and he’s going to go back on the KG V.” That was general knowledge, yeah.

No, I don’t think there was a worry about it. They reckoned it was safe enough with a couple of cruisers, a couple of destroyers, had plenty of cover. We were probably un-needed anyway.

Yes, well that was an air sea rescue flight bases at Darwin with 43 Squadron. There were two Catalina squadrons in Darwin. There was 20 which was at east, up in the Darwin harbour. And there was 43 Squadron which was at Doctors Gully, right in the town.

And we were stationed at 43 Squadron at Doctors Gully. Now we didn’t do much in the way of air sea rescue because we just went over from 42 Squadron to there and the war finished. So we became the sort of transport squadron and did more in that way then air sea rescue. And transport was generally

taking supplies and equipment to either Balikpapan in Borneo, or Labuan which was up in the northeast corner.

Food supplies, fresh food, some mechanical supplies, but mainly food supplies, yeah. Was a bit expensive I suppose

to be transporting fresh meat and whatnot that distance. That was about, Balikpapan I think was about an eight or nine hour flight, and Labuan was further up about ten or eleven hours. Fair way to be carting fresh meat and whatnot, but we did. Brought back some personnel of course who were posting home.

One of the trips was a bit of a mercy trip, the one to Singapore that I told you about I think. And another one was a bunch of Dutch internees who had been brought back to Java, and we took them from Darwin to Perth. Dropped them off in Perth, there was about eighteen I think, we had on that load.

That was when we had the example of how good a scrounger Australians can be. We didn’t have such a heavy load, but getting off at Darwin harbour we seemed to run an awful long way and just stagger into the air. And when we got up, I went back and it was usual under the navigator’s table,

for when the crew were going to stay overnight they all took kit bags and store them under the navigator’s table. And this pile seemed to be bigger than usual. Asked Bill the navigator, Norm had left, you know, “What have we got under there Norm?” And he took the kit bags off and under there was a diesel engine and a generator. Now how anybody could

load a small diesel engine and generator on there. They must have got it our on one of the workboats, and loaded it up through the blister and stowed in under there and that was fine. And it turned out to be one of the crew’s father had a farm, and of course they needed power on the farm, so he’d somehow or other got a hold of this generator. The war was over so scrounging was

pretty rife. And he’d stored this on the aircraft, and it was pretty heavy and that’s why we had trouble taking off. So when we got to Perth it was coming on nightfall, so I just said to these jokers, “Look, I don’t know who owns this, but it better not be there in the morning,” and it wasn’t. That wasn’t too bad. There was a story around, another couple of jokers were found

going down the road in a, you know, mobile crane and they thought they had use for a mobile crane, so they were taking it down to Adelaide. But they were picked up by the MPs and the crane was duly returned to the squadron. That was one of our trips.

Yeah, both. Yes, there were a couple of children amongst them, and they’d been interned by the Japanese in Java. I don’t know just where they came from. Yeah, from memory there was half and half. They didn’t seem to be in bad condition, nothing like the coves from Singapore of course, but they were

extra special.

No, not these people, they didn’t speak any English at all. But it didn’t bother anybody. I think it was about a ten-hour trip from Darwin down to Perth. All inland of course, we didn’t go down the coast, we just went straight across inland. And I remember particularly

the desert part of it was just like corrugated cardboard. All sand hills just set in the one direction and you’d swear it was a sheet of cardboard. Funny the things you remember, isn’t it? Another funny thing I remember, one of our wireless

ops, Bob Hutchinson, he was a bit of a naturalist. And he got a hold of some tomato seeds and planted his tomato seeds, and of course up there in the wet season anything grows like mad. So up came the tomato plants, great tomato bushes but never any tomatoes on them. So he found out there was no bees, no bees to pollinate them so he didn’t get any tomatoes.

Yeah, the whole arrangement was, I think there were ten, or twelve Catalinas came up from Rathmines and the OTU

with army medical team and medical supplies. And the idea was to go to Singapore pick up, take all this medical team and supplies to Singapore, that was the operation to be done. And they came up to Darwin one day, stayed overnight. The next morning one of them ran on a sand bank and crashed, and

we were lucky enough to get the job to replace that aircraft. And the old boot captain insisted, “Well, if you want the aircraft, well you take the crew.” So we got that job, and the first day was Darwin up to Labuan, and looking back on it we found it very, we had to wait four or five days in Labuan for the surrender to be accepted

and the whole thing to be organised. And it was done by the, some of the British Army officers had come down from Burma to accept the surrender and tend to this. Then it was a morning flight, I think it was about four hours from Labuan to Singapore, maybe six. Anyway, we get over there, nothing. No facilities.

The English had had an aerodrome at Seletar, which was half way up the island, and attached to it they had a flying boat bay. The Japanese had used it, but as they moved out they sort of sabotaged all the motor transport what there was in the boats.

So when we logged in there, there was nothing, we depended on our own dinghies, so we broke out the dinghies and a couple of blokes from each crew went ashore, and the engineers got busy and within a couple of hours they had motor transport running and had a couple of the boats working, so we were able to unload supplies. In the

meantime all the Japs had been marched out. They were sort of confined to camp so we didn’t have worries about that, we saw very little of them. Enough motor transport was got going, moved all this up to Changi, and the medical coves got busy and their first job was to pick out the best of these chaps to be flown back.

They did that in the afternoon, and we stayed overnight, stayed in what had been the officers’ mess for the Seletar aerodrome. And we found that they were virtually, they’d been stripped of furniture but not damaged in any other way. And all the honour boards etcetera, that would normally be in an officers' mess

were all there intact. Quite surprising really, no damage had been done. But around the aerodrome they’d made up models of aircraft, just three ply models and they were around what would be the dispersal area, just to make it look like from the air as if they still had reasonable number of aircraft, whereas in fact they

had nothing, I don’t think. The next day we were given our quota of the POWs [Prisoners of War] to bring back, and they were in a very poor way. But they were so pleased to be coming back it was almost, sorry.

They were like children, you know. They asked us… When we took off, we had seventeen, I think, seventeen or eighteen. And the only place to see anything from the Cat was in the blisters at the back. So we were asked to let four or five or six go out there, and do a couple of

circuits around and let them see Changi from the air. Oh, you have no idea how sort of pleased they were. So that day we took them across to Labuan, they went into the hospital overnight. The next day was a pretty traumatic day for them, it was a ten hour flight from Labuan back to Darwin, into the

hospital again overnight. And by this time some of the crew had become you know quite matey with some of them. They went into hospital overnight, and by this time Rathmines had got another aircraft up there, so we didn’t go any further, we just handed them over to them. But that was a really worthwhile operation, really was. I have to say of all

the flying we did that was a highlight.

No. No, one of the things that bothered me was that I

saw one of these coves and I thought, “Gee, I know that bloke.” You know, just looks familiar. I couldn’t think where or how, and it wasn’t until, oh it must have been a year or two later when I realised, yes he was at school at Fourth Street and he was a year behind me. But he was a friend of a particular friend that

I had in the scouts and it just seemed to come to me, yes that’s who it was. And I can remember his name now, his name was...

No, no I was a flight lieutenant and we never had anybody above that. Although we went up, here we were a bit top heavy

with three officers and a warrant officer. And usually a crew was two officers, both pilots could be officers, and maybe three with the navigator, but very rarely more than that. We had quite an experienced crew up here that had been on instructing and whatnot. So we were, but no, nobody

said anything. But it didn’t matter quite frequently in bomber command, the pilot would be a sergeant or warrant officer, but he could have an officer navigator or one of the other crew. That could happen in bomber command but it didn’t happen with us. The captain was usually, or virtually always

the senior officer. Even when we went to Singapore the other aircraft that had crashed had been flown by Keith Polliatho, he was a group captain. And had been CO of the OTU but although he came with us I was the captain. That’s the only time I can remember having an officer, a senior officer on board, but I was still the captain. Even when

we took the Admiral Somerville down from Mount Batten to Gibraltar, he was just a passenger, he had no rank on the aircraft.

Well yes, each time we went back from Mount Batten, which was the 10 Squadron base

in Plymouth harbour, we’d take a few passengers back. And you didn’t know who they were until they came aboard, you were just told oh, three bodies or four bodies or whatever. And he just came aboard, very nice cove. I didn’t see much of him, he ensconced himself down the back and I was up the front. But he was quite friendly with the crew.

And when I can remember morning came and there was a beautiful sunrise and I said to one of the coves, “Look, ask the admiral if he wants to come up and see this sunrise.” “Yes, all right if I may, I would love to do that.” So up he came and Jock vacated his seat and the admiral sat there and admired the sunrise.

He was just an ordinary bloke, very friendly sort of fellow. But there was nothing eventful about the trip. We got pretty used to it, we were very lucky to be able to do it so often because we got many a break up in the UK, you know. But he other poor fellows, they were there for eighteen months, the ground crew were there for eighteen months without going back to England. But

it was fairly simple, it was always an overnight trip. Take-off from Mount Batten late in the afternoon, fly overnight and land in Gibraltar first thing in the morning. Then be reported by the Algeciras duty pilot of course, the UK would know that you arrived safely and scrub your name off the board.

That was a real formality too you know, you’d just go and the operations officer would write up to time of take-off, and you’d come back and just scrub your name off the board and that was that.

Yes, yes there was a good relationship

between ground crew and aircrew. Felt sorry for them because the conditions for aircrew in Gibraltar were pretty good, reasonable living conditions and whatever. But the ground crew were either Nissen huts, or quite a few of them their quarters were at the back of the maintenance hangar. They were

pretty primitive, but the ground crew were pretty good.

Oh yes, I think most ground crew if they had the opportunity would want to be aircrew.

No, no.

You could take them on test flights, yes you’d take a couple on test flights. But not on operations, didn’t take any on operations, but if you were doing a test flight, yes you’d take a couple of the ground crew engineers or the radio operators would take a couple of the radio mechanics, that was quite common.

Test flights were fairly frequent, you know, you need to do one after every couple of trips just to check on everything that had to be done. And swinging the compass was another operation, could be done on the ground with ground aircraft, but with a Catalina you couldn’t manoeuvre on the water to swing the compass, you did it in the air.

So that was a flight you’d take a couple of passengers with you.

Oh yes, yes. It was pretty obvious that it was coming to the finality. Not until the bomb was dropped, I think the general attitude, “Well, this is going to go on for some time.”

And all the arrangements were such that we knew the RAF was bringing squadrons out from England to take part in it. And that everything was being lined up for a final push on Japan, and then bang down came the bombs, finished everything. Well we knew then, “Oh, ok we’ve just got to finish off and do the cleaning up.” And I think at that stage I was

quoting about another three months and I’ll be back, all over. Well that’s the way it turned out because it finished in August, September, October, November, oh a bit longer than that because it was the end of January beginning February when I actually finished off. So from August to January we knew it was all over, just a matter of washing up and waiting for your discharge.

Not until it happened, knew nothing.

What did we hear?

Well, the first thing we heard was, “It’s finished,” and everybody was extremely happy about it. But no, we had no prior warning or expectations. We just expected to go for another

whatever. We had no idea how long it was going to go on. But the general feeling was, “Well, the worst is yet to come.”

Oh yes. Yep. And I don’t think, any criticism that might be as to whether it should or shouldn’t, doesn’t come from anyone that was involved in it. May come from those that

it wouldn’t make any difference to anyway whether it was dropped or not. War wasn’t really affecting them. But anyone who was in it, yes, they were quite happy about it. You had no real sympathy for the Japanese either.

No, I can’t remember anything special, as a matter of fact I can’t remember just where we were. I know we were in Darwin on the air sea rescue flight. But just don’t remember anything specific about it, it just happened and that was that.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

The last one we did was a bit of a transport flight, we had a bundle of, well a mixture some army and some air force. And the last trip was Darwin across to Cairns, stay overnight there. Cairns down to Rose Bay, unload everything at Rose Bay. Back to Rathmines

empty. Tie up to the buoy at Rathmines, walk ashore and leave it. That was the last trip, yes. And it took another couple of weeks before discharge. But I was quite happy to see the end of it.

My only thought was to get home to Betty, and to Peter of course, because the baby had been, what, he was about

eight months old then. So that was the only thought we had, everybody had the same thoughts. Just get home and get settled in again.

Oh no, quite happy to get home as quick as possible, so we didn’t dilly-dally anywhere.

Oh yes. Yes, I was the only married one and the rest were all single, but they were all happy to get home anyway.

About Peter?

Oh, I got a constant report every couple of days. And the gain in weight seemed to be the major sort of yardstick as to how he was going. And as a matter of fact, the

coves, on the roof of the tent drew a big graph with charcoal. And every time I got a letter from Bett I had to report to them and they were putting up the increase in weight, keeping track of his progress. Small Talk as we called him. Small Talk, so it became a crew exercise, you know everyone was interested in the progress.

Oh no, that was just for the time. But we called him, Small Talk in our correspondence, didn’t we? Which was pretty prolific at that time of course.

Yeah, I think it was leave, I think. At Rathmines, yeah well that you got a bit impatient at that, waiting for something official to happen.

You knew you were finished, but you had to wait for official notification of discharge.

I really can’t remember what we did, it was certainly no flying. I think it was just putting in the time at the station. Doing what you wanted to do.

Being at Rathmines of course, on Lake Macquarie we did a bit of swimming and fishing at times, but just what we did there, I don’t recall. But I know you know we were waiting for discharge and that’s all we were interested in.

No, no it sort of dribbled on from day to day. Could be

any day because they were coming pretty thick and fast then. Everything was winding down, you know just cleaning up. No operations going on, no flying going on. So you just were sort of waiting your turn.

No, I can’t, I can’t.

I can just remember finishing off at Rose Bay and then getting back to Rathmines. And then the next recollection was being home with Betty and Peter. That’s all I can remember. Just what happened in the meantime or how, I don’t know.

That’s odd, isn’t it?

Yes, because Betty was up in, living up at Lawson at that stage, in a small flat up in Lawson. And that’s where we really sort of started off again, for a short time, and then moved down to the old family home in Concord West. But that's sort of, I can recollect Lawson fine, but just sort of that intervening period,

I can’t recollect that at all.

Yeah, blank.

Oh magic. Yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah. Mum tells the story that

I arrived at night and the next morning got up, Peter’s awake and Mum picks him up and says, “Dada.” “No, no, no, that’s Dad.” She had a big photo in uniform, not in pyjamas. That’s Dad in uniform. I don’t know whether I recollect it or having been told

about it. Mum said, I had to get dressed and put a coat and hat on and then I was accepted as Dada.

No, no. That was Dada. But he was a pretty fat little fellow, wasn’t he? Peter. Peter was funny. We spent a couple

of really happy weeks out at Lawson, and then moved down to Concord West. But I can remember the Blennerhassett institute wanted me to come back and coach there, and I put that off for a couple of weeks, because I didn’t have anything else to go to. Where I’d been at Laurence and Hanson wasn’t open for me to go

back there. So the only thing I could start with was this accountancy coaching at Blennerhassett’s college. So I started off there and did that for a while and then moved out and got another job. But we didn’t find any great difficulty getting back together again after that time.

Well it was really, yeah.

It was almost being married for the first time.

That really came later. When I joined up at this, I was at Laurence and Hanson, the electrical wholesalers, that sort of hadn’t been accepted at that stage and as far as they were concerned I had terminated employment there, and I was finished there. And I filled in

the time, oh ten months or so while I was on the reserve coaching at Blennerhassett’s, but there was no obligation to re-employ. I wasn’t a permanent employee at Blennerhassett’s, so there was no obligation for them to re-employ me. But they just wanted somebody to fill in their coaching anyway. Because I think I made it pretty clear to them, “Well, yes

I’m quite happy to come back but I won’t be staying.”

Yeah, I think we just sort of existed, and probably so much in the clouds we wouldn’t remember it anyway.

No. No I, we just sort of picked up where we left off. No I think it would be more truthful to say we never did leave off, we just carried on in absentia.

Oh yes his chart was going up at a great rate, and when I got back and saw him, he was a real podgy little fellow, yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah. I was very popular, yeah there was no worry about that.

We kept up a regular correspondence with letters, you wrote regularly but you didn’t get regularly. Particularly in Gibraltar, you’d get a stack about every four weeks or so. Because in those days it had to go from here, go to England because all Bett had was the address

of the Australian post office, Kingsway, London I think it was, if I remember rightly. So everything went there and then they redistributed to whatever unit you were in. So all this took time of course, and you’d get a bunch of letters. So I used to put them in order and then read one a day until I got.

Betty put a date on the back

of the envelope, so I knew which was which. And parcels of course - they took ages to arrive. She’d send us Christmas cakes. I was at Gibraltar for two years at Christmas and Bett used to send us Christmas cake, which we’d get in time for Easter. But then it had to be strung out and made to last a while, so we got quite adept

at cutting very thin slices of Christmas cake. And we weren’t selfish with it, shared it around amongst the crew. They used to get a slice and wonder whether it was a cigarette paper or a slice of cake. Complain that they could almost see through it, that was their share.

She used to send parcels to her aunt in England too. They were pleased to, mainly tinned apricots and tinned fruit was popular in those, that lot. They were always pleased to get those.

No cigarettes,

I didn’t smoke so there were no cigarettes or tobacco, never worried about that. Although I did at one stage, I bought a pipe and I thought, “Oh, I’ll smoke that thing.” Bought a pipe and a tin of tobacco, and I think when I came home there was about half an inch used of the tobacco. I’d light it up and if I did anything else I’d forget about it and it would go out.

If I concentrated enough to make sure it stayed alight I couldn’t do anything else, so didn’t seem to be much point in that so. But others things yes, chocolate that was one thing, but it had to be put in tins, and salted up. No, that came in a calico parcel.

Other things of you know biscuits and whatnot would come along. All very welcome of course.

No, not much in terms of that, mushy things that you wouldn’t want anyone else to read.

Yeah, yeah they were always popular. You’d go through them once and then you’d put them back in order and go through them again until the next lot arrived. They were real morale builders. But one of the jobs we had at Gibraltar was censoring mail.

And all the ground crew etcetera had to have their mail censored. And they’d be handed out amongst the air crew officers’ packets of about twenty at a time, and your job would be to go through them and make sure there was no mention of anything to do with operations or movements or whatever. They were out. If there was anything of that nature

you had a marker pen and just scribbled that out. But it very rarely happened. But some of them were really sad. I remember one I was going through, and I suppose I shouldn’t have but it was so interesting I did read the thing and not just look for mention. Apparently thins particular chap had come from Plymouth,

and there had been bombs dropped in Plymouth, and his letter was something to the tenor of, “Sorry about Uncle Joe and Aunty Eileen but they didn’t have much chance with the bomb bursting in the basement. But lucky Mum and Dad are all right only being a couple of houses away.” And this sort of thing. And they had all this worry, and I thought, “Gee,

dreadful business to be locked up down here knowing this sort of thing was going on in your hometown.” So it gave you a bit of sympathy for the ground crew locked up in Gibraltar for eighteen months, no doubt they’d have much preferred to be nearer home. But some of them were pretty traumatic in that way. And I don’t think

it’s generally realised out here just how much damage was done throughout the English towns and the casualties that did occur. And when you hear the criticism of having bombed some of the German towns like Hamburg and Dresden, you didn’t have to do that, it didn’t add anything to the war. You only feel, well,

what would people who had suffered the way that they had, when the boots on the other foot you can hardly blame them for wanting to make use of it, can you? They did suffer. We went back to Coventry when we went to England and it had been decimated and the cathedral had been rebuilt in the modern style but the shell of the old one had been left next door.

When you went through London, there were quite a few churches and nearly every one of them had been burnt out, because they had either shingle, shingle roof generally, and they suffered badly from sundry bombs. I can remember going up to Saint Paul’s and from the top gallery you could look over the whole of London. And here’s Saint Paul’s standing in an area of

devastation, not another building left for a couple of hundred yards around Saint Paul’s. And yet it’s standing there virtually undamaged, I think the only damage it suffered was a bomb through the roof went right through to a crypt in the basement but didn’t explode. I think that was the only damage it suffered, but everything else around was flattened.

Yeah, yeah. The ones that were particularly striking were at Plymouth. Right along the waterfront there was houses left standing and shops, but all burnt out. And other places,

Glasgow particularly, that got a terrible pasting around the docks and whatnot. It was just flattened, about three streets back from the dock I think was just completely flattened. And of course the east end, around the dock areas there, that had suffered badly, most of it was flattened. But the damage was terrific.

In the whole of my association with them I don’t think I met anyone who had any idea other than they would win the war. They weren’t going to lose the war, it was just a matter of time. They’d win. Defeat didn’t enter their head. Other people might have a different idea, but that

was the attitude I found, yes.

Yep. We were, as air crew you were popular and well regarded, and on a number of occasions you’d have the remark, “I don’t know why you should be over here helping us. Why aren’t you back home

taking care of that situation?” And even I, we had a funny experience with a, what it’d be, one of Mum’s cousins, I suppose. I’d been down to her aunt’s place in Hampshire, and then each time I went back I’d go down for a night or more. And when we went back twenty-five years later

we arranged to meet, might have been Mum’s cousin anyway, or Aunt’s sister, who I call, who knew you, at the army officers’ club in London. And I’d never met this cove and he’d been a marine during the war, right through the thing. When he turned up we were going to meet he and his wife for lunch, and

we met her, Anne and then he turned up. And when he was introduced to me he said, “Oh yes, I heard you weren’t a bad sort of a bloke.” It appears that the story had gone around that when I was first going to Aunt’s sister that Aunt’s sister was going to have an Australian to stay with her, an Australian. When I turned up they were probably surprised that I

was white and spoke the language, and didn’t sort of swing on the chandeliers or do any other silly thing. But this was most peculiar, his first remark was, “Yeah, I heard you weren’t a bad sort of bloke.” No, we were well regarded and had no trouble with the locals.

Oh, it undoubtedly did, yes. We didn’t have any trouble settling in. Whether we would have been any different without a family, I don’t think so, I think we’d have settled just the same and had a family. But having Peter born

during that time you know you were that far ahead. I think it would have been all right otherwise.

No, we didn’t take very long to set up house.

Betty’s father had died, mother didn’t want to stay in the house at Concord West. We just checked around that none of the other family wanted it, no nobody wanted it, a couple of brothers and a sister. So we said, “Right, we’ll take it over,” because at that time to get a house was extremely difficult. You know to build a house was also difficult.

So we took that over, moved in there and settled down and that was fine. I didn’t stay long with Blennerhassett’s, I got a job with Commonwealth Industrial Gases, CIG, which was an offshoot of BOC in London. Got a job there as an accountant because I was already qualified.

And we settled in quite, you know no problem at all.

Different Australia?

It had changed in so far as

difficulty of, you know things were short. But that would be all, I didn’t notice any difference at all. Particularly I’d say, after London, what that was like, with all the damage and blackout and whatnot. And then by the time I came back to Sydney, Sydney was just the same, no different. And you know no blackout or anything.

It didn’t seem to me to be any different to what it was when I went away. People were going on and making do and seemed to be all enthusiastic about getting back to normality as you might say. Whether it ever did get back to what was normal before I don’t know. I suppose we’d all changed really.

Oh, I would say I was not quite so simple and naïve as I was when I went away. As a matter of fact I think every service joker had the same idea that boy I wish I had known when I went in what I know now. I would have come out a lot better off. Yeah, so I think we learnt a lot, and we were

a bit more, I wouldn’t say sophisticated but experienced anyway.

Wished to know?

Oh well if you knew how to manipulate the system you’d have been a bit better off. There was some fortunes made during the war, there was a lot of money passed around and jokers who

knew what they were up to and run gaming schools and all the rest of it, and knew how to operate on the black market. There was money to be made if you wanted to do it.

Oh yeah, yeah. Particularly jokers who could

get access to some of the American stores were able to trade and trade with them. Trading whiskey was one of the, what would you say, pretty prevalent up in the islands. Coves that were able to come back to Australia, get a half a dozen bottles of whiskey, take them up and they’d do well in a bit of trade with the Americans.

Even now you hear some coves talking about what they were able to do with gaming schools and whatnot.

Oh, poker and two-up. I never got involved in it, I never played a game of poker or went to a two-up school, but amongst the army it was more prevalent. Mind you, you have to

discount a lot of what you hear because I think with a lot of coves it’s like going to the races. They’ll always tell you about the one they backed, that one, but they never tell you about the one that didn’t win. So anyway, I think there was a bit of exaggeration in most of the talk you heard. That’s what they reckoned about the ladies, the coves that bragged the most did the least.

That’d be right dear?

Yes, but not as much as we might of I suppose. I knew generally where she was and what she was doing, because

mainly not from what she was telling me, but I’d know from where she was and being in ops room I’d know what she was doing. But I don’t think I communicated as much as I might have about what I was doing. Except in regard to leaves and whatnot, but operations no, didn’t detail those to any great extent.

Not as much as we might of, looking back on it I might say. It went back into the background and stayed there.

Positive.

Well I felt that yeah, I suppose they we were able to come back and there’s a feeling well we’ve done something, we’ve done our part. We didn’t script it, we done anything, we were asked to do. And

then against that, the thought of if we hadn’t done it now it’s over and its been achieved and we’ve depended on someone else to do it for us, we wouldn’t have felt good about it. But because we had done it, and been in that finish and at that stage everybody was happy that everything that had to be achieved had been, and we

could feel pleased with ourselves that yeah, we’d done our bit. I think that was the general feeling.

I think our advice would be, “Well, if you feel that way, and you feel it’s worthwhile, go to it.” Do it.

No. No, I think I’d say, “Well, make up your mind what you want to do, what service you want to go into. Go in and do it.”

I wouldn’t say, “Join this or join that, do this or do that,” it’d be purely their choice.

What, that it was a gentleman’s war?

No. No, I don’t think so, I don’t think we felt any respect for the Germans. Particularly the thing that everybody had most in their mind was the destruction of their bombing, and the other thing was their brutality

in the occupied countries, and particularly their brutality on the eastern front. So no, no sympathy for the Germans.

No, I don’t think so.

But you know just to get back together, I think we made the best of our time, and we look back on our years together, and we both say they’ve been richer for having had our war experience. That being together again has enabled us to enjoy life just that much more than we would have done if it hadn’t been there. So

we’ll say, well we’ll sign off very happily.