On the first Sunday in June, crowds will gather throughout Australia to commemorate the men of Bomber Command.
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The ranks of those ordered to fly bombers and their deadly cargo from British airfields into the moonlit skies over Europe during World War II are now very thin. Those who remain are unsteady on their feet, their frames frail, but they proudly move to lay wreaths at the Bomber Command Memorial on a chilly Canberra morning, or elsewhere in this nation, to remember comrades long gone.
They gave their best years to a campaign they were ordered to carry out. In the beginning, it was military and industrial targets, but then it was not. Following the war, they were subjected to derision and struggled with their own demons. Nonetheless, their service and sacrifice continues to be felt internationally, and it should never be ignored by Australians.
At the beginning of WWII, the Royal Australian Air Force looked glamorous. Survivors of the grim and dirty trench warfare of a previous war believed that if their sons had to go, this would be cleaner and safer. How wrong this assumption was, for fathers, sons, families, communities and Australia.
The RAAF accounted for about 2 per cent of WWII enlistments, yet they made up nearly 20 per cent of Australian fatalities. These young men were the best of the best, and they paid a terrible price.
Through paint and canvas, Canberra artist and Gallipoli Art Award winner Margaret Hadfield (Zorgdrager) captures this sacrifice and enduring legacy. In the forefront, the graves of the Australian Lancaster crew of pilot Michael Skarratt. Flying Officer Jack Nott (right front), Flight Lieutenant Wallace Martin (right back), and Pilot Officer Lionel Gibbs (left front) offer ghostly images.
In 1939, a generation was called to arms by loyalty to king and the British Empire.
Wallace Martin grew up on the family property, Splitter’s Creek, in the Upper Hunter Shire in NSW, surrounded by the splendid blues and greens of the mountains of the Liverpool Range. Wallace, a middle child of six, had a different personality than his siblings. His mother, Mary Martin, tried hard to hide her favouritism.
Wallace was a gentle man, with a sense of humour and a love of adventure. Though a member of the district’s 16th Light Horse, it was flying that grabbed his attention, so he enlisted in the RAAF in August 1940. He was off to see the world and to slay dragons. In letters to his father, John, there was an element of bravado, something missing from his letters to his mother.
Wallace’s bomber returned badly shot up after an operation over France and he was admitted to hospital. Concerned about radio references to ''the invasion of Australia'', he wrote: ''I really wish I was at home now, to lend a hand''. But British authorities would not allow Australian aircrew to return to defend their nation, yet they began receiving white feathers (a symbol of cowardice) from misguided Australians.
Wallace was becoming increasingly depressed. Mates continued to die: ''Most of the old brigade have been bumped off ... I am the only Aussie on the squadron.'' Wallace knew his family could never understand and censors ensured only the pleasant parts of letters commonly made it through.
The tempo of bombing operations increased. By now, Wallace was drinking heavily, admitting, ''my nerves are a little shaken''. Invited to spend leave at the farm of a Scottish family, he met Jess and his spirits soared.
As he approached his 23rd birthday, Wallace was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross as the result of a raid followed by the pinpointing of downed Allied fliers. More importantly, as far as he was concerned, Jess had agreed to marry him.
Again his bomber returned from an operation shot up, and again Wallace was badly wounded. His physical wounds healed faster than his spirit. He wrote to his family: ''I have not been really 100 per cent since my last crack-up, as I kind of have the jitters … it will eventually wear off as time goes on." Wallace wanted to marry Jess and he wanted to go home.
He kept referring to his mood as ''melancholy'' – in 1942 post-traumatic stress disorder was unheard of. Aircrew feared being stripped of their rank for a ''lack of moral fibre''. Wallace continued his rehabilitation.
When a Ventura navigator was needed, pressure was put on Wallace to volunteer. Anxious to avoid the ''lack of moral fibre'' tag, he agreed. His Ventura was shot down over the Netherlands. Flight Lieutenant Wallace Martin, DFC, is buried in a Dutch cemetery in Eindhoven – his grave far away from the country he loved.
Mary Martin’s health deteriorated rapidly. Following the war, she heard that foreign graves were being photographed, so she asked for a photo of Wallace’s grave. London authorities replied: ''The photographing the graves of servicemen buried in Europe had been completed.'' Wallace’s grave had not been photographed.
Mary was advised that the British Legion, London, could arrange for a photo, provided Mary completed an order form in triplicate and ensured she enclosed the correct monetary amount in pounds sterling. The British Empire was responsible for the death of her favourite son but she needed to pay in British currency for a photograph of his grave. Mary Martin died within the decade.
Air Force history concentrates on air marshalls, operations and strategy, but it is most of all about the aircrew who dreaded the moonlit nights and felt the fear rise in their throats as their heavy bombers sluggishly climbed into the sky, and later as their aircraft were pummelled by flak from anti-aircraft fire.
Lionel Gibbs from Griffiths, NSW, was a farmer who was fascinated by flight and built a glider that actually made it into the air off the family property before crashing below. Lionel’s WWII bomber was blown out of European skies. The glider now hangs in Griffith's pioneer village, a fitting tribute to the man who built it and the family he left behind.
On the early evening of the day before Christmas 1944, six Australians, aged 20 to 25, should have been standing in an Aussie backyard drinking a cold beer and burning sausages on the barbie. Their conversation should have been about the Boxing Day Test and how the Aussies would pummel the Poms into early submission.
Instead, these young men with bright futures were at RAF Binbrook being briefed for an operation to bomb rail yards at Cologne. Their Lancaster exploded near the Dutch town of Oostelbeers. Their graves lie amid the colour of flowers, foliage and small trinkets that adorn the freshly raked soil.
This is the work of students from St Joseph School, Oostelbeers, who are taught about the sacrifice of these young men and continue to care for the graves of flight sergeants Robert (Bob) John Dickie, 20; Cyril Keith Deed, 25; Russell Ian Stewart, 21 all from Melbourne; Flying Officer John Michael Ward, 21, from Adelaide; RAF Engineer Sergeant Thomas Charles Newman, 21; and 20-year-old Flight Sergeant Graham Fowler Day. Day was educated first at Queanbeyan High and then Canberra High School, and before the war, he was a messenger with the Commonwealth Public Service Prices Branch.
On the other side of the world, most of his life John Skarratt has wondered why no one has asked ''how much I have missed my brother''. He speaks tenderly of Michael, the Lancaster pilot. ''You know our mother never recovered from losing Michael. Michael was the very best of us.'' John is greatly consoled by the reverence shown by young Dutch students and the small sign they placed in front of the crew graves reading ''Bedankt'' (Thank you).
Flying Officer Jack Stewart Nott from Armidale in NSW does not have a tombstone. He was the only survivor from an RAF Halifax crew that took off on the night of June 16, 1944, to bomb Sterkrade.
Jack was taken in by the Dutch Underground and eventually moved with a Canadian and an English airman to the safe house of 60-year-old Tilburg resident ''Coba'' Pulskens. Police loyal to the occupation army were tipped off and raided the house. The three airmen were shoved into the backyard and gunned down. Their bodies disappeared. Coba died in a concentration camp.
After the war, the Dutch turned in those who murdered the three airmen and they were hanged. A memorial was erected to Coba near her home and another opposite bearing the names of the three airmen. Jack’s son, Tony, who was only three when his father was murdered, travelled from Australia as a special guest at the unveiling.
The history of Australians attached to RAF Bomber Command is much more than aircraft and operations. It is also why on June 1, we should take time to consider how we have treated the young men ordered to undertake one of the most controversial and dangerous campaigns of WWII; how their legacy continues and should be given the same reverence that Australia has awarded those who served and sacrificed in land warfare.
It is letters like this one from NSW-born Pilot Officer Herbert Delacour that remind us of their sacrifice.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I hope you never get this, for if you do, it means I did not return from the operation I am about to set out on. I have no feeling of premonition – nothing at all, but the reason I’m writing this is an expression of gratitude to you, which I want you to know I feel very much. I’ve often wondered how it was I was so lucky to be born to such parents as you and Dad. No other mother in the entire world could have been so good, kind or understanding, or, to sum it up in one word, GRAND, as you have been to all of us ... And the same to Dad. Together such parents in this whole, wide, wicked world of ours could never be found.
Do not grieve over me too much Dad and Mum. Oh I know you will grieve and the pain in your heart will burn badly for a while, but please Mum and Dad, remember I’ve died the way I’ve always wanted to die and died the way so countless numbers of other fellows are dying every day on this earth. I am just merely your contribution to a better, cleaner, freer world. May you obtain that world Mum. And, again, remember it is you who are left behind who are the real heroes, not us who die. It is you who bear the sacrifice, so grin and bear it and remember that famous motto ‘time heals all wounds’. Yes time will erase that burn from your heart Mum and then, you and Dad and the family shall know that what you suffered was, after all, just a minor affair, an everyday happening in this world.
I can’t express here how much I love you Mum and Dad for it is beyond all expression. I hope my brothers and sisters all grow up to have happy successful lives. I will not say goodbye Mum for it is not goodbye, for one day we shall all be again united in a much better land than this.
So I’ll Only Say
For the Present
Lots of Love to you all,
From Your loving son,
Bert.
Dr Kathryn Spurling is adjunct research associate at Flinders University and author of A Grave Too Far Away: A Tribute to the Men of Bomber Command (New Holland, 2012)