Fly

by Michael Veitch

  As they sat on a train in Berlin’s old Anhalter railway station on their way to prison camp, German guards protected them from civilians, who glared at them murderously. On the other side of the platform, Ian watched blinded and wounded civilians – some of them children – boarding a hospital train. Later, Ian heard that six aircrew who had baled out the same night as him were lynched on streetlamps. ‘You can’t really blame them, though,’ he says with unexpected magnanimity. ‘The Brits did the same to their blokes in London.’

  An immaculately uniformed army officer managed to reach the carriage, and in true Teutonic style, slapped Ian about the face with his gloves while he hurled abuse. His navigator understood a little German and explained in subdued tones. The man’s wife and daughter, it seemed, had been killed on their raid of a few days before. In addition, two of his sons had just become prisoners of the Russians – a virtual death sentence. ‘You could see he wasn’t too pleased with us,’ says Ian.

  The men were taken to the famous Dulag Luft transit camp for POW aircrew near Frankfurt, where Ian was interrogated for six days. He refused to divulge anything but the standard ‘name, rank and serial number’, was beaten again, had a cigarette butted out in his face and was hurled down a flight of stairs. Eventually, he was taken by cattle truck to Stalag 4B near Muhlberg. Here, he sat out the war until one day in 1945, a Russian tank showed up and ran over the perimeter fence, flattening it from one end to the other.

  In his sixteen months in captivity, Ian experienced nearly being bombed by American Flying Fortresses by day and by his own RAF by night, observed a tank battle take place outside the camp, pilfered a Luger from a dead German soldier, went from thirteen stone to six and developed a life-long disdain for those of German extraction.

  Except perhaps one. I ask him if there was any fraternisation at all between the prisoners and the guards in the camp, or whether all his jailers were as bad as each other. Only one man he remembers with any affection, and I am amazed when he tells me his name. ‘Max Schmeling. Have you heard of him?’

  Eight years before meeting Ian, the great German boxing star, Max Schmeling, beat Joe Louis for the international heavyweight boxing title and was touted a hero of the Nazi regime. Schmeling, however, refused to play along, resisting pressure to join the party and even insisting on keeping his Jewish coach. Decades later, it was revealed Schmeling had protected two Jewish children in his hotel room on Kristallnacht in 1938, later spiriting them away to America, a gesture which, hero or not, would have sent him to a concentration camp.

  Hitler eventually soured on his hero, and sent him into the army where he became a paratrooper and was wounded on Crete in 1941. His later stint as a guard, a final ignominy, brought him into contact with Ian, who saw in him another side to the Germans.

  ‘There was a Russian prisoner in the camp who was an Olympic weightlifter. I know that Schmeling used to smuggle extra rations in for him. He was the only one I’d pay as being decent,’ he tells me.

  I’m glad that we finish on this vaguely positive note. By the end of our long talk, Ian has regained some of his earlier, drier self. He tells me it took him quite a while to recover, especially from the beating he received on his first morning. ‘Up until five years after the war, if I’d seen that bloke I think I would have killed him,’ he says. It’s good to know that time mellows some of the passions, if not the memories.

  DAVID ROBERTS

  Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, RAAF

  ‘On the edge of the granite country’ is where David Roberts hails from, courtesy of a soldier settlement block earned by his father who, as a trooper in Palestine in the 4th Australian Light Horse in 1917, was one of those gallant young Victorians who leaped over the heads of the astonished Turks cowering in their trenches, taking nearly a thousand prisoners as well as the town of Beersheba in the last successful cavalry charge in history. ‘He didn’t talk about it much,’ says David. For my sake, I’m hoping it’s a family tradition he has chosen not to uphold.

  I know the ‘granite country’ of southwest Victoria. It’s an odd place, lush and fertile but buffeted by winds from the Southern Ocean and dotted with volcanic lakes of a murky, opaque hue. For some reason my father insisted on taking us there on damp and miserable holidays. As a kid I’d go for long solitary walks among the boulders, spewed up aeons ago like marbles, thinking that this was a place where bad things had happened.

  For far cheerier places, try Byron Bay in northern New South Wales, which is where I met David in his modern retirement unit on a warm, blustery afternoon. As a young man, he was dead keen to join the RAAF, but before flying aeroplanes, he had to be released from his job helping design them on the drawing boards at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. As a seventeen-year-old junior draughtsman, David helped draw up the blueprints for the Wirraway and the Boomerang (a type he later had the satisfaction of witnessing in action), but made it clear to all and sundry that his intention was not to draw them but fly them. And come his eighteenth birthday, he was off to enlist. This is where his problems began.

  ‘One day the boss came up to me. “I’ve heard you’re intending to join up. Forget it. You’re in a protected industry, son, there’s no way you’ll be released.”

  ‘Just watch me,’ replied David. But it wasn’t as easy as he had thought. ‘I made noises, but it didn’t do me any good,’ he says. He began to think the only contribution he’d be making towards his family’s military heritage was flying a desk. But as they say, it’s not what you know but who. One day David spilt his woes to a visiting RAF liaison officer. ‘I can always just disappear if they won’t release me,’ he said. The officer was sceptical. ‘People have tried that,’ he said. ‘They just get dragged back. Why don’t we go upstairs and have a chat to the boss?’

  The ‘boss’ happened to be none other than Lawrence James Wackett – aviator, industrialist, swashbuckling hero of the Australian Flying Corps and now head of the CAC – just the kind of chap to help a keen youngster through the red tape to find his way to the action. ‘Ah yes,’ he said looking at David with a misty eye. ‘That’s just what I was like when I was your age. So, we’d better put a story together, hadn’t we?’ he added, no doubt with a great deal of winking.

  It all worked brilliantly. Wackett oiled the wheels of bureaucracy and Robert joined the RAAF just after his eighteenth birthday, and was given the service number 431422. Things now moved quickly, and within a fortnight, he was on his way to basic training at Somers. After all, these were urgent times. The Japanese were in the war and aircrews were sorely needed.

  He didn’t make his dream of becoming a pilot and was selected instead to become the ears and eyes of the aircraft, the wireless operator/air gunner. At OTU at East Sale, the assembled mob of trainee pilots, navigators and ‘WAGs’ were told that they would be trained to fly the Bristol Beaufort, and by tomorrow, they were to have sorted themselves into fifty-six individual crews.

  It was always a haphazard experience, as David says, ‘trying to assess each others’ capabilities purely on appearance and mannerisms’, but his became a close crew. There was fellow gunner Fred Lewis from South Australia, and Lloyd Preece, another Victorian, who had trained as a pilot until his poor eyesight saw him scrubbed to navigator. At this task, however, he excelled and without him, says David, none of them would have survived. All they now needed was a pilot. ‘Sorry, all the pilots have been taken,’ said their instructor. ‘Better come and see the CO to see what we can do.’

  ‘Yes, they’ve all gone,’ confirmed the CO. What were they to do? A crew isn’t much use without a pilot, and it looked like David and the boys had missed the boat. It was an odd situation. ‘Hang on,’ said one of the instructors. ‘What about Alan Tutt?’

  Alan was himself an instructor at Sale but had already seen action on Wirraways in 1942 in Darwin and later as a test pilot for some of the more dubious American aircraft which were then arriving on our shores, including the highly ridiculous Bell P-39 ‘Airacobra’
. This single-seat oddity was constructed around an enormous 37-millimetre cannon which could fire no more than thirty rounds through the propeller hub. It was set so far back in the fuselage the pilot had to sit on top of the engine with a drive shaft to the prop running between his legs. It also lacked a supercharger and was such a lemon the Royal Air Force actually sent theirs back to America and tried to cancel the remainder of the contract. Alan, says David, was constantly having to bale out of them on test flights.

  He then also had a stint on the American ‘Vengeance’ dive-bombers, fitted with engines that spontaneously burst into flame and whose pilots could barely get them off the ground fully loaded. If you can fly aeroplanes like these, you can fly anything.

  ‘He was champing at the bit to get back into operational flying,’ says David. ‘We were very lucky to get him.’

  David’s respect for his former pilot is demonstrated by the small blue volume he passes over to me to peruse. An Early Bird and His Beaufort Crew. Recollections of flying with Alan Tutt – RAAF pilot, WWII. It is a modest, self-published history that David decided to write some years ago after Alan’s death. On the cover is a photo of four handsome young men all sporting the parted hairstyles of the 1940s, sitting easily on the ground in air force summer khaki, their affection for one another evident.

  Four specialists, four individuals who would bond into a team and galvanise into a crew. ‘We lived together, trained together, knew each others’ idiosyncrasies – even knew the smell of each others’ sweat,’ says David.

  A quick conversion course at Adelaide, then a flight to Darwin to join No. 1 Squadron RAAF, the same unit which, a quarter of a century earlier, had flown over the heads of David’s father in Egypt and Palestine, earning Australia’s only World War I VC in the air. Its recent history, however, had been far grimmer. Sent to Malaya, No. 1 Squadron had been the first Australian unit to engage the Japanese when its Hudson bombers began attacking landing positions in Sumatra in December 1941. Weeks later, it was all but wiped out when 161 of its personnel were captured on their airstrip by the advancing Japanese. Less than half would survive more than three hellish years in captivity. The squadron effectively ceased to exist and re-formed almost from scratch two years later in December 1943. David became its youngest member.

  An hour or so from Darwin by road, the aerodrome at Batchelor still exists today, a neat little strip of black tarmac used by Cessnas to treat tourists to the rugged delights of the Litchfield National Park. Back in 1944, however, it thundered to the roar of American B-17 and B-24 bombers. The Australians were relegated to the much more modest strip right next door at Gould.

  David remembers the flight up from Adelaide in a DC-3, stopping at Oodnadatta on the way for corned beef sandwiches, and unloading his kit in the 30-degree heat of an early Darwin morning. Then, the 150-mile journey south by truck, and a timbered archway marking the entrance to the place from where he would commence his operational flying – an airstrip carved out of the bush.

  For the first couple of weeks, David was lectured on antisubmarine techniques and attacking troop concentrations, and got a chance to meet the other crews who had been in action before. Then, it was his turn, and a baptism of fire it proved to be.

  Tanimbar Island lies roughly 400 miles due north of Darwin in the Arafura Sea. Like many of the islands between New Guinea and the northern coast of Australia, it had been used by the Japanese to establish radar and radio transmitting stations which were regularly visited by their navy. At Saumlaki, its southern tip, they had recently begun construction of a transmitter more powerful than any in the neighbouring islands. Alan and his crew were asked how they felt about popping up and grabbing a few pictures as well as dropping one or two bombs. They were all eager to have a go.

  David gives a fine, atmospheric description of the evening before a mission, each member of the crew preparing in their particular areas of expertise to ensure its success. Lloyd the navigator with his maps spread out – working on the details of the route; David coordinating the radio and frequency charts; and Fred the gunner polishing the perspex turret, testing the rotations and checking the ammunition bins. ‘We went to bed early after laying out our gear,’ writes David: emergency rations, a .45 Smith and Wesson revolver, water bottles and even the big cane-cutter’s knives they would need to strap to their legs in case of having to bale out over the jungle.

  The next morning, pilot Alan Tutt conducted the external inspection of the aircraft and signed the EE77 aircraft work report form as the crew climbed aboard. Alan signalled the ground chief and the two big Pratt and Whitney engines fired up, powering the hydraulics and the controls. David radioed the control tower, ‘Ready for take-off.’ A green light appeared and the time was recorded in the logbook.

  ‘I told Mum that I would say a little prayer whenever I felt like it, so I did then, and on every other mission,’ says David. He also offers a brief description in his book:

  Take-off was a sensational experience: our speed was awe-inspiring and we felt the tail wheel lifting. Below there were glimpses of aircraft parked near trees and buildings. Then a bit of a bounce or two and with Alan steering we left Mother Earth disappearing beneath us.

  On the way, Alan told the crew of the importance of the job, and that the defences were likely to include anti-aircraft and two Zero float planes moored near the transmitter. With any luck, they would have the element of surprise, and Fred was to hold his fire from the turret to avoid disturbing the residents unnecessarily.

  At first light, they made their first run. David, holding the wide-angle hand-held aerial camera, stood in the open hatch of the aircraft with his knees up against the fuselage to prevent him falling out. The towers passed underneath him, and he took the photo. So far so good, no one was seen on the ground. ‘Okay, that was great,’ called in Alan over the intercom. ‘I think they’re all asleep. We’ll make another run and get a picture of those float planes.’ This time, however, they weren’t just shooting film.

  Firing at anything they could see from the guns in the turret and nose, Alan dropped four bombs and shot low over a ridge, twisting and turning to put the now-alerted Japanese gunners off their aim. A nearby cloudbank provided cover. His manoeuvrings, though, were not quite enough. At 1600 feet, ‘a terrific bang’ was heard and the Beaufort fell on its starboard wing and into a spin. ‘Shit! Hang on, it’s OK,’ yelled Alan and managed to right the plane to straight and level. Then another bang and flame began to flicker in the nacelle of the engine.

  Alan’s skill and experience on single-engine flying enabled him to quickly use the extinguisher and shut the motor down. ‘Right, we’ve had an engine failure. Lloyd, give me the speed, height and position report. David, call Air Sea Rescue at the Catalina base and tell them the story.’

  They were still three hours away from Australia, flying on one engine over a very big sea dotted with Japanese-held islands. The Beaufort could fly for some time on one engine but by no means indefinitely. After checking food supplies for the dinghy in case they needed to ditch, and hurling everything of any weight out the hatch, the ‘tremendous sight’ of a big black Catalina flying boat came up alongside. David could see the Cat’s crew crowding at the windows and, amazingly enough, the two captains were able to conduct a conversation across the divide. ‘How are you going, mate?’ shouted the flying boat pilot. ‘The sea looks pretty rough. We’d better go down and see what we can do if you get stuck. Don’t worry, we’ll stay up here with you for days if we have to.’

  It was too rough for the Catalina, so Alan could either ditch and wait in the dinghy, or try to make it to an emergency aerodrome. The nearest was Gove on the Gulf of Carpenteria. ‘Alan loved chatting to anyone on the radio,’ says David, and he advised them they would soon be ‘dropping in’.

  The sea spared them, but twenty minutes later circling Gove they discovered that they could add undercarriage malfunction to their list of woes. The starboard wheel would lower but not lock. A belly landing was a f
ar safer proposition, but when Alan hit the switch, the wheel now refused to go up.

  Speaking to the tower at Gove, he advised them to have a crash truck and ambulance waiting at the end of the strip when they landed, and be ready to ‘pull their finger out’, as it was going to be a rough one.

  Braced into their emergency positions with backs against the main wing spar, Alan’s crew awaited the big bang. ‘I’ll do the best I can but hang on for the spin and the turn-over,’ was his sobering assessment of their chances. ‘Good luck, mate,’ came the message from the control tower.

  ‘An almighty noise and a severe banging as we hit the ground, then everything came to rest and was silent,’ writes David. After coming to a stop, the only noise he remembers hearing was the ringing of the fire bell and the ambulance siren. The skill required to bring down an aircraft with one engine on one wheel, without it spinning out of control or flipping over is hard to comprehend. But, says David, ‘Alan was one in a million.’

  With the Japanese being pushed further north, No. 1 Squadron was finding its targets increasingly beyond its range, and a move north was deemed necessary. They converted to Mosquitoes, but Alan and his crew were regarded as valuable and so joined No. 7 Squadron who had just moved into Aitape – a recently recaptured dot on the northern coast of New Guinea. ‘Spiders, insects, thunderstorms and snakes’ remembers David of his first impressions. ‘I even shot a snake one night,’ he says. For a boy from the cool climes of Colac it must have seemed a strange place to find himself indeed.