Taking to the Skies

by Jim Eames

  As they approached the target in the bombing run, with his task now handed over to the bomb aimer who would guide the pilot in the final few minutes to the dropping point, Richardson decided on the spur of the moment to leave his navigator’s table and take a look outside. With the Lancaster buffeted by exploding flak he moved forward, drawing back the curtain which separated the cockpit from the rest of the aircraft and stared ahead—directly into a sheer wall of bright-orange flak bursts, each one aimed at bringing them crashing to the earth in flames. All he remembers is shouting to his pilot: ‘Shit, skipper, we don’t have to fly through that, do we?’

  ‘I closed the curtain and never went up there again,’ he said with a smile.

  Wartime experiences aside, many of those who have seen aviation develop from the piston to the jet era have also witnessed a significant change in the degree of humour. Such advances in technology now demand that the aircrews of today’s Airbus and Boeing aircraft be systems managers as much as pilots. At the same time flying itself has become such an everyday occurrence that the romance and humour of the past years has largely been left behind.

  The stories are still around, though, whenever more than two industry veterans gather in the same room for a reunion or merely a drink or two, thus providing a unique insight into a colourful past. Not all the humour relates to animals, of course, and the tales of past years, when simply maintaining regular air services led to many a laughter-filled anecdote, could probably fill a book in their own right.

  The late Bill Lovell was Qantas’ manager in Jakarta in the dangerous years after the war, when the Indonesians were fighting for independence from Dutch rule. During one particularly heightened emergency all Qantas flights into Jakarta had been cancelled except for one for which the turn-back signal came too late, therefore meaning Lovell would somehow have to reach the airport through the numerous road blocks which had been established.

  Lovell quickly deduced that bribery would be the answer so he raided the office duty-free store and loaded the Qantas vehicle with as many bottles of scotch and cartons of cigarettes as he could find and set off for the airport. His aim was to meet the incoming Qantas flight and turn the aircraft around as quickly as possible to send it out of the danger zone.

  It was a very self-satisfied Lovell who finally arrived at the airport after having bribed his way through every military road block en route, but as he watched the Qantas flight disappear over the horizon he suddenly realised he had a new problem. He’d used up all his contraband on the way out. He spent several days in primitive lodgings at Jakarta airport while the crisis played itself out.

  But when it came to the telling of tales, few could match the legendary Captain Hugh Milton ‘Smokey’ Birch. Indeed there have been some in the industry who, blessed with a rare combination of experience and personality, have left an indelible mark on those who came in contact with them. Captain Birch, DFC, was one such person.

  One of his former colleagues in Qantas once described Hugh Birch as ‘the airline executive from central casting’. Greying hair, debonair, his good looks added to by the neatly trimmed handlebar moustache and the ready smile, Birch carried the romance of flying through an assortment of executive roles, including sales and marketing and public relations, in Qantas long after he handed in his active ‘wings’ as an operating pilot.

  It would be wrong to assume that Birch traded on his ‘captain-of-the-skies’ image, as some of his colleagues tended to do. To those who knew him, Hughie was the real package, and although he rarely spoke of his years in the RAAF during the war, the fact that he was entitled to wear the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Dunkirk Medal, the Cross of King Albert of Belgium and the French Croix du Combattant, along with the Atlantic, Africa and Pacific Stars, demonstrated the breadth of his wartime activities.

  Birch joined the RAAF prior to the Second World War, learned to fly at Point Cook and went to war earlier than most Australians, merely because he was one of five pilots sent to England in July 1939 to ferry home a batch of Short Sunderland flying boats the Australian government had purchased for the RAAF.

  Birch and his colleagues had completed their conversion onto the Sunderland when war broke out that September and within months the Australian government had decided to form No 10 Squadron, flying the Sunderlands on maritime patrols. No 10 was therefore the first Australian Squadron to see service in the Second World War and Birch, as it turned out, would be in the thick of it.

  The big Sunderlands had an extensive range capability, ideal for long over-water patrols and anti-submarine activity in the Atlantic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean, and they carried enough guns to have the Germans refer to them as ‘Flying Porcupines’. Indeed, their heavy armament discouraged many Axis pilots from attacking them.

  That wasn’t to be Birch’s luck, however, and he got more than he bargained for when, near Gibraltar one morning, he spotted a German Dornier flying boat low down on the water. What followed is believed to be the first air-to-air conflict in the war between two flying boats. Birch’s front gunner got off a few rounds, but the Dornier replied in kind and suddenly there was a flurry of tracer coming the Sunderland’s way.

  ‘The next minute there were several explosions and everything became very draughty,’ Birch would say.

  In fact, a 20-mm cannon shell had exploded next to the front gunner’s turret and torn 4.5 metres out of the Sunderland’s hull.

  ‘Fortunately the gunner escaped with some shrapnel wounds and recovered later in hospital, eventually marrying the nurse who looked after him,’ Birch recalled later.

  Birch’s Sunderland again became the target a few months later when it was ‘jumped’ by two German Ju-88s, but this time the tables were turned when the Sunderland’s side gunner shot down one and the tail gunner accounted for the second. Shooting down two enemy aircraft in one day was a rare event in a Sunderland flying boat.

  In between surviving another attack by a German night fighter off Malta, Birch flew a variety of VIPs into and out of war zones: the occasional US Navy admiral, along with General William ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, the head of America’s war-time intelligence arm, the Office of Strategic Services. On one occasion he flew Anthony Eden to Cairo as Churchill’s man in the Middle East. The day after they landed Eden invited Birch to lunch with the British Ambassador while they discussed the situation with the war, something of a social coup for a young Australian pilot officer.

  Birch ended the war as a group captain and joined with Australian aviation pioneer Captain P.G. Taylor in a plan to use converted Second World War Catalina flying boats to open a holiday market to Lord Howe island, but the venture didn’t have time to get off the water before the Dutch navy offered such a good price for four of the five Cats that they were soon heading over the horizon. When island traders W.R. Carpenter offered to buy the remaining one, Birch went with it to what would be the start of a long association with flying in Papua New Guinea.

  Birch would later describe his entry into commercial aviation as the ‘chief pilot’ of probably the world’s smallest airline, laughingly qualifying the boast by the fact that if an airline came any smaller ‘then you didn’t have one!’ Looking back, this would be the start of a career which would open up the more remote regions of Papua New Guinea to the rest of the country and, eventually, pioneer many of the flying-boat routes throughout the South Pacific. It would also create fertile ground for the colourful raconteur Birch was to become.

  Island Airways, based at Madang on New Guinea’s northern shore, had a staff of five and its sole Catalina had benches instead of seats, a factor which did not prevent Birch from, at least on one occasion, uplifting 72 passengers. Later, Birch would describe the occasion in typical fashion:

  It was a fairly short sector. I think the take-off run was three or four miles, but it gave me a good working knowledge of quite a large stretch of the Coral Sea!

  Birch would also describe his salary as ‘not exactly awe-inspiring for a chief pilot�
��, a situation he partly overcame by taking out a pedlar’s licence which enabled him to sell such exotic merchandise as mirrors, beads, tobacco, betel nut and old copies of the Sydney Morning Herald to the local population. No one should get the impression the Sydney Morning Heralds were for reading. Rather, any form of newspaper was a priceless commodity, as cigarette paper for the stick tobacco favoured by the locals.

  At one stage he even became a sales agent for several ‘witch doctors’ on the upper reaches of the Sepik River, who had launched one of the earliest stone axe and native artefact factories in the region. Birch would later claim all this buying and selling would stand him in good stead in later years with Qantas.

  ‘Now it’s commonly referred to as marketing!’

  Birch’s long career in Qantas began one day when one of the airline’s founders, Arthur Baird, arrived in Madang and asked him if he wanted a job. Birch claims he considered the offer for roughly ten seconds before saying yes, at the same time realising that parting from the New Guinea scene would be difficult.

  This burst of nostalgia didn’t last long when he realised his first Qantas assignment would be operating the airline’s flying boats in Papua New Guinea, but in the years that followed Birch would be the first into many outposts never before to have seen a regular flying boat service.

  Later, flying out of Sydney’s Rose Bay, he would operate as chief pilot for Qantas services to a pattern of Pacific islands and in 1950 he undertook a pioneering survey flight of more than 13 000 kilometres to test the viability of possible services to Tonga, the Cook Islands, Samoa and as far east as Tahiti. That flight laid the foundation for future commercial aviation between Australia and its Pacific neighbours.

  Along the way he would consolidate the legend of the captain who might take the flying side seriously, but, outside of the cockpit, would never miss an opportunity to not only see the humorous side of the business, but be part of it as well. Landing on tropical lagoons and being paddled ashore to exotic locations by wahines in outrigger canoes consolidated the image of the dashing aviator who never let off-duty hours get in the way of a good time.

  He would tell of the time a senior Qantas executive, a very devout Methodist, accompanied Birch’s crew on a Papeete service, turning in to bed early after the long flight. Having difficulty sleeping he woke up late in the night, asked the hotel staff where he might find Birch and his crew and was directed towards a place known as Quinn’s Bar. When he found them, garlands of flowers around their necks and a wahine on each knee, he immediately ordered them out, dressing Birch down on the footpath outside:

  Good Lord, Birch, now I know what’s meant by a den of iniquity. The only thing I can say about that hell hole is the woman singing on stage had a beautiful voice. I love that song she was singing.

  Birch didn’t feel it appropriate to tell him that fortunately he hadn’t recognised that the ‘vocalist’ was Birch’s second officer in a coconut-shell bra and straw wig singing an Édith Piaf favourite!

  Then there was what became known throughout Qantas as ‘the billiard ball incident’. In those days Qantas placed a high priority on punctuality and, aside from the vagaries of weather, mechanical failures and a variety of other reasons, a delay on any service required a detailed explanation to head office. That’s why the telex which arrived in Sydney one morning explaining a delay in Nouméa would enter Qantas folklore.

  Birch and Mick Mather, his copilot and navigator on their Sandringham flying boat, were well known around the Pacific for their party tricks, and never missed an opportunity to encourage a few bets here and there. Mather, as it turned out, was renowned for being able to place a billiard ball in his mouth, so over a few drinks at a Nouméa party, boasts were made and challenges thrown out.

  What they hadn’t realised, however, was that the billiard balls in Nouméa were slightly larger than those in Australia and, once it was in, Mather couldn’t get it out. Birch would enjoy telling the story for years to come, particularly the search to find a doctor to dislocate Mather’s jaw in order to dislodge the billiard ball, along with Birch’s own mental image of the look on the face of the operations manager in Sydney as he read the reason for the delay.

  With the era of flying boats succumbing to land planes, Birch commanded his last Sandringham flight in January 1952, by which time he had thousands of hours and more than 30 aircraft types listed in his log book. It was perhaps fortunate for both Qantas and Birch that the latter’s return from flying provided ample opportunity for the airline to use his extensive talents in roles which largely avoided being chained to a desk at the airline’s Sydney head office. Indeed, one of Birch’s close colleagues, John Rowe, remembers Birch’s first reaction when told that his management rank entitled him to an office of only a certain size and one in which the walls stopped short of ceiling height. Turning to Rowe he commented: ‘This is a crazy bloody company.’

  While never the type to stand on ceremony, Birch had little respect for what he considered petty bureaucratic strictures, but it wasn’t long before he was able to shrug off the shackles of head office and was posted to San Francisco as manager of North America. It was an inspired choice and a new era dawned for both Birch and the airline as he took to the role with undisguised relish.

  His humour, style and not least his colourful background made him an instant hit with the American travel community and helped Qantas establish its own particular niche within the vast American airline market. Within a year or two the local civic and travel community had appointed Birch an honorary Sheriff of San Francisco County, a post which he sealed with the establishment of the ‘Sheriff’s Posse’, a special alcove he decorated with artefacts and memorabilia he had collected from all over the United States.

  It was to become the entertainment hub for VIPs and travel sales managers from all over the US west coast. A keen race follower, who was rarely known to miss a Melbourne Cup, Birch had the room equipped with batwing doors, guarded by a life-size model of a jockey in full race regalia.

  When it came time for him to return to Australia, Birch insisted the Sheriff’s Posse idea come back with him and several of the former Qantas San Francisco staff still recall watching through San Francisco’s airport terminal window as Birch’s possessions were taken by cargo trolley out towards his departing Boeing 707—with the jockey’s head and shoulders poking out above the packing cases.

  After a stint as manager of Victoria and Tasmania, then the airline’s manager for Public Affairs, Birch was Regional Director South Pacific when he retired in 1977, fittingly perhaps those final years providing him with the opportunity to renew acquaintances and business contacts he had gathered throughout the islands in his early years with the airline.

  In retirement he remained in touch with the travel industry, at various stages representing the Kingdom of Tonga, along with promoting Alaska in the Australian travel market. On occasions he would reminisce about the old days. ‘There is no doubt that commercial aviation has come a long way, but I think a lot of the fun has gone out of it now.’

  His life philosophy, he said, was simple:

  It is that we are on this earth to serve our fellow man and if we don’t continue to serve within our limits then we are destined for unhappiness.

  Almost every individual I know who retired into complete inactivity and still is healthy and able to serve but does not, has one of two things happen. He either dies or becomes a cranky old man. The former I’d like to avoid as long as possible, the latter I’d like to avoid entirely!

  Hugh Birch easily managed to avoid the latter for his 79 years. The former caught up with him in January 1996.

  References

  Books

  Clune, Frank 1951, All Roads Lead to Rome: A Pilgrimage to the Eternal City, and a Look Around War-torn Europe, (originally pub. by Invincible Press, 1950), Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

  Donovan, Peter 1989, Connellan Airways: Outback Airline, Chris Connellan, Alice Springs.

  Eames, Jim & Fed
eral Airports Corporation (Australia) 1998, Reshaping Australia’s Aviation Landscape: The Federal Airports Corporation 1986–1998, Focus Publishing, Edgecliff, NSW.

  Gall, Jennifer & Australia Airports Division 1986, From Bullocks to Boeings: An Illustrated History of Sydney Airport, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

  Gunn, John 1985, The Defeat of Distance: Qantas, 1919–1939, 1st edn, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Queensland.

  Odgers, George (ed.) 1980, The Defence Force in the Relief of Darwin After Cyclone Tracy, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

  Powell, Alan 1996, War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau, 1942–1945, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, Victoria.

  Sinclair, James 1971, Sepik Pilot: Wing Commander Bobby Gibbes, DSO, DFC, Lansdowne, Melbourne.

  Stretton, Alan 1977, The Furious Days: The Relief of Darwin, Sun Books, South Melbourne.

  Websites

  National Disasters Organisation, Australian National Library, .

  National Library of Australia, Digital Collections: Oral History.

  Northern Territory Government, Department of Arts and Museums, .

  Reports

  Air Safety Investigation Branch 1971, Boeing 747Aircraft N652 PA at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport NSW, 18 July 1971, Department of Civil Aviation Australia, .

  Air Safety Investigation Branch 1971, DC8-63 Aircraft CF-CPQ and Boeing 727 Aircraft VH-TJA at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport NSW, 29 January 1971, Department of Civil Aviation Australia,