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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0688.PDF
FLIGHT R.A.A.F. IS THIRTY stralias ex-fighter-pilot Air Minister reviews a proud record the Hon. T. W. WHITE, D.F.C., V.D., M.D. (Top left) Mr. i. W. vvn/te, author of this article. (Above) R.A.A.F. Mustangs, built by Commonwealth Aircraft, before departure for Korea. THOUGH the R.A.A.F. has just had its thirtieth birth-day (March 31st) its story really started 37 years agowhen my friends H. A. Petre* and the late Eric Harrison formed the Central Flying School at Point Cook. Those were care-free days. We used to fly Bristol Box-kites and similar aircraft which would look like a practical joke to your modern jet-fighter pilot. A Box-kite could, and did, fly backwards in a strongish breeze, and when you hit a ground object, as I did on occasion, the low speed really helped. You walked away from the wreckage. There were four of us in the first group of pilots trained at Point Cook; Air Marshal R. Williams, C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., now Director-General of Civil Aviation, was one of us. I left early to lead the "first half-flight" to Mesopo- tamia (now Iraq) in April, 1915, and was held prisoner-of- war by the Turks until I escaped to Russia in 1918. One of the ground staff in that expedition was A.V-M. George Mackinolty, O.B.E., who died recently. Williams commanded No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, in the Middle East, a famous unit which included Ross Smith and Hudson Fysh. Three other A.F.C. squadrons served in France, and among the aces of that wonderful band was the present Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal George Jones, C.B., C.B.E., D.F.C., who was an outstanding fighter pilot in 1918, and A. Cdre. Harry Cobby, C.B.E., D.S.O., D.F.M., G.M., who was the Australian ace. After the war the four A.F.C. squadrons were disbanded in Australia. The Australian Air Corps was founded in 1920 to carry on flying at Point Cook, but was an Army unit. An independent air Service, however, appealed to our defence leaders because of the instant success of the R.A.F. after its foundation in April 1918 by the merging of the R.F.C. and R.N.A.S. So, on March 31st, 1921, the Aus- tralian Air Force (given the honour of "Royal" a few months later) was founded, with 21 officers and 130 airmen. It was a tiny but efficient band. Two of the originals are still serving, G/C. H. G. Bennett, M.B.E., and W/O. C. J. O'Connor; they were airmen then. Naturally, the organiza- tion was smaU—a Melbourne Headquarters, a London Liaison Office, and two units at Point Cook—No. 1 Flying Training School and No. 1 Aircraft Depot. There were no actual squadrons until July, 1925, when Nos. 1 and 3 Squadrons were formed. No. 1 is now in Malaya, fighting the Red bandits. When the Second World War began, the R.A.A.F. waiS building its strength under a plan to be completed in 1941. With 300 officers and 3,000 airmen, it was a minute force compared with its 1944-5 strength. In 1945, the R.A.A.F. had 52 squadrons and 131,662 men and women serving in the Pacific, as well as thousands more in other theatres of war! overseas. Nobody in 1939 could have dreamed that the Service would be larger in 1944-5 than the R.A.F. was when war broke out. A glorious page of history was written by the R.A.A.F. in Europe and North Africa during the war against Germany and Italy. But we paid a heavy price : 5,488 dead in European theatres and 1,131 in the Middle East, out of a total of 10,000 R.A.A.F. killed in the entire war. First in action was No. 10 Squadron, whose aircrews were in Britain in 1939 to take delivery of Sunderlands for the flight back to Australia. Instead, they stayed in Britain as a unit of R.A.F. Coastal Command for five years. Gibson, Podger, Knox-Knight, Garing and Pearce, who were among the outstanding pilots of No. 10 in the early days, are all prominent in the post-war permanent Air Force. The first R.A.A.F. squadron to be sent overseas during the war was No. 3, which went to North Africa in 1940 and fought through the entire Mediterranean campaigns from Libya and Syria, where it aided the A.I.F. divisions, to Sicily and Italy. The squadron had outstanding pilots in Brian Eaton, Nicky Barr (who was shot down in the desert three times and walked back to base), Rawlinson, Steege, S/L R. Cresswelt. commanding No. 77 Sqn., R.A.A.F., receives advice from FjL. Max Scannell, R.A.F., during conversion to Meteor 8s in Japan. *Major H. A. Petre, D.S.O., M.C., who recently received the R.Ae.C. Silver Medal in recognition of his record as a still-active pilot who has been flying since 1911.—ED.
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