When Noel Eliot arrived in England in November 1942, he and his brother Bill quickly settled into life in Bournemouth. ‘We could hear guns firing at times so we knew there was a war going on, but this place looked further from the war than Perth did. All the shop windows there were sand-bagged and there was a strict black-out. Shop windows here were open, though there was a black-out,’ Noel recalled. In March 1943, he was finally posted to a pre-Advanced Flying Training School. The flying program was regularly interrupted by bad weather and poor visibility. When he did get airborne, Noel, by his own admission, put in ‘some pretty rough efforts’. ‘One problem was getting lost in this unfamiliar terrain—so much of everything that all looked the same, so unlike the wide-open countryside at home.’
In June, Noel was posted to No. 11 Operational Training Unit near the Buckinghamshire village of Waddeston. Brother Bill, now a Flight Sergeant, was already there. It was the first time since they had been in England that they had been on the same station together. They hired horses and went riding in the summer-green countryside, enjoying some rides together for the first time since leaving the farm in Western Australia. Noel also crewed up, assembling an English navigator, Jack Hassett; an Australian bomb aimer, Jack Lynch; an English flight engineer, Ted Hawkins; and two gunners, a Scot, Jock Weir and a young Englishman, Johnny Grantham. As the course progressed, the new crew members joined him in flying Wellington bombers. The Wellington was an aircraft that Noel never really liked, not least after an early flight with an unpleasant instructor.
I made a rather wild loop to port across the airfield on takeoff, and he said to me, ‘Are you trying to kill me, Eliot?’ Though the idea appealed to me, it was found that the throttle cable to the port engine had jammed. We changed to another aircraft and the same thing happened again. One benefit from the incident was that he must have thought it was too risky to fly with me again.
At the end of June, while Bill stayed at Waddeston, Noel and his crew moved to the satellite field at Oakley, about twelve kilometres closer to Oxford. The two brothers were granted leave, and they arranged to meet at the Boomerang Club, in Australia House. The break also allowed them to spend a couple of days billeted with a rural family: under the Lady Frances Ryder Scheme, short stays with families were arranged for service members in cities, towns or farms around the United Kingdom.
Noel and Bill visited the family of an English labourer who had worked on their farm in Western Australia during the Depression. They enjoyed two pleasant days together, roaming around the countryside and visiting Busbridge Hall, their ancestral home. Their leave over, Noel travelled to a conversion unit for the four-engined Stirling bomber at RAF Woolfox Lodge, in Lincolnshire, while Bill headed for a similar course at RAF Waterbeach, near Cambridge. The first two Stirlings Noel saw were on their bellies on the airfield. ‘I was to learn that they were brutes to swing on take-off and landing, with the resulting collapse of their elongated undercarriage,’ he recalled.
Four days later, as Noel contemplated the challenges involved in flying the Stirling, another Australian, Tom Bradley, asked him, ‘Have you heard from your brother lately?’ Noel replied, ‘Not for a while—why?’ Tom said a friend of his who was in Bill’s crew had reportly been killed in an accident. Noel was alarmed.
I went straight to the Adjutant, Flight Lieutenant Liddell, and asked if I could have a phone call to RAF Waterbeach . . . spoke to the Adjutant there, gave him my name and said, ‘I heard that my brother had been in an accident—was he injured?’ A cheery young voice replied, ‘All killed—funeral one-thirty this afternoon!’ All I could say was, ‘Oh God.’ He sounded like one of the ‘Six Week Wonders’—healthy looking young men who did a six-week Administration Course and was then granted a commission.
The accident, near Cambridge, had claimed seven lives. Flight Lieutenant Liddell phoned Noel’s Flight Commander, Wing Commander Crompton, and told him the story. Crompton said he would fly Noel and any of his friends to the funeral in a Stirling and pick them up again that night. Two of Bill’s friends, John Newton and Tom Bradley, went with Noel. An RAAF padre who knew Bill conducted the service:
As the principal mourner I walked behind the trailer carrying the seven flag-draped coffins and John Newton and Tom Bradley walked beside me. I had good talks with the Padre and Bill’s C.O. who told me he had a high opinion of Bill’s work and his commission was on the way. Wing Commander Crompton picked us up at nine p.m. and flew us back to base. Never have I known such heartfelt gratitude as I had for Flight Lieutenant Liddell and Wing Commander Crompton. Back at base my crew overwhelmed me with their sympathy and were a great consolation to me. For the first time in my life I suffered from homesickness.
Noel made his diary entry for 6 September 1943 with a heavy heart. ‘This is the saddest day of my life, and the first time I have experienced personal tragedy,’ he wrote. Bill had been just thirty-one.
Having finished his training in Canada, Ted Pickerd arrived in England in late 1942 and waited in Bournemouth for a placement as the RAF built up its Halifax and Lancaster squadrons. There were already more recruits available for operations than aircraft. Ted was offered a posting as a navigator to a Mosquito night-fighter squadron. He didn’t want it. ‘I had set my mind on the Lancaster. It was the glamour bomber aircraft or strike aircraft of the war,’ he recalled.
While he waited for a Lancaster posting, he went on attachments flying Ansons over the Irish Sea to keep his navigation skills honed. The fledgling aircrews were farmed out to small grass airfields for flying and map reading with pilots who were in the same situation as all the other aircrew. While on one of these attachments, Ted met pilot Keith Schultz, a former fruit farmer from South Australia. ‘You couldn’t have got two people so totally unlike as Keith Schultz and myself,’ Ted said. But it was a case of opposite poles attracting. Sent to the same OTU, they decided they would crew up together. By now, Ted was gaining confidence—and feeling calm: ‘I was starting to develop a bit, I wasn’t sick any more there—perhaps I was too frightened to be sick!’
Wireless operator John Holden also did training flights over the Irish Sea, from Stranraer, on the Scottish coast. Arriving at the base, he was sent to a hut for his stay. As he walked in an Australian voice yelled, ‘There’s a bunk here, mate!’ John grabbed the top bunk and discovered that the voice belonged to a bomb aimer from New South Wales. They soon decided that, if they were posted to the same OTU, they would try and crew up together.
And this was accomplished. We were NCOs, sergeants, and we were waiting for our dental inspection, and a flying officer, an Australian flying officer pilot came along with a flying officer air gunner, and they both said in one voice, ‘Are you two crewed up yet?’, and we said, ‘No.’ ‘Would you like to join us?’ And we said, ‘Yes, providing you take us together.’ And it was assessed that they already had the navigator lined up, and the pilot was delighted to meet us. But I was a bit dubious because he and I found we’d got two more members of the Australian Air Force from New South Wales, and then after discussion found that the navigator was from New South Wales, and I was the only Viccy-ite amongst the other four—so you can imagine the trials and tribulations of Melbourne-versus-Sydney.
The newly formed crew was posted to Lichfield. John, at twenty-one, was its youngest member.
After arriving in Bournemouth to the welcome of a bombing attack by two Messerschmitts, Alf Read appreciated the seven days’ leave he was given. He grabbed the chance under the Lady Ryder Scheme to go to a dairy farm on the coast, unaware that it was located in an area regularly shelled by the Germans. He saw bombs on every one of those seven days. Once, Alf and his farmer host were driving to a sale when they suddenly heard air raid sirens.
And I thought, ‘Golly that sounds a bit funny.’ The next thing we see a row of houses with the windows and doors blown out. Women and kids come screaming out, and a truck had been blown over and a fellow lying wounded alongside of it. I realised I was in an air raid. And this was all in [my] first week [in England]. What a welcome. I was ready for home, I can assure you.
Back in Bournemouth, Alf found that would-be pilots greatly outnumbered aircraft. He was selected as one of sixteen pilots to be trained as flying instructors. No sooner had he begun the course than his best mate was killed in a formation flight when the tail of his aircraft was cut off. Then an aircraft flew into a hillside, killing its two crew. Not long after, as Alf was waiting to take off, a collision between two aircraft killed another eight men. Bits and pieces of debris showered into a paddock where POWs were pulling turnips. A further disaster involved a new Oxford. The aircraft had been fitted with a heavy radio, which upset its balance and sent it into a flat spin from about five thousand feet. The centrifugal force threw one of the crewmen up into the tail section. When the plane hit the ground he survived, but his three crewmates were killed. As training-course captain, it was Alf’s job to advise the next of kin.
After graduation, Alf was posted to Cranwell College, the RAF training and education academy, where pilots were trained to fly spy planes. On one training flight, with a pupil in the front seat of the single-engine aircraft and Alf in the back seat, a pipeline broke, blinding the young trainee with hydraulic fluid. Alf had to switch the motor off urgently.
I was getting ready to drop into a paddock. But I saw an airfield with Lancasters landing on it and I came in across 90 degrees to the runway and managed to get the undercarriage down and finish my run right under the control tower. I just sat there and nothing happened. After a while I thought I’d better get out and have a look. I could see a Lancaster with a rear gunner being hosed out of the turret. When I went into the mess I found that it was the dambusters [who] had just returned from their raid. There was sixty-four missing from the mess that day, so they weren’t concerned with my problem whatsoever.
Before long, Alf asked to be posted to a Lancaster squadron. He hoped that his experience as an instructor would stand him in good stead.
Arriving in Brighton, Bill McGowen and his mates immediately began exploring the town’s hundreds of pubs. The former holiday resort’s hotels, cafes, shops and boarding houses now stared across the English Channel at occupied Europe. After a couple of weeks, Bill was posted to No. 9 Advanced Flying Unit at Penrhos, in north Wales, to be trained as a bomb aimer. It was still summer and, having had no luck with the local girls, he decided to go surfing in the Irish Sea. ‘Quite a good surf was running and large enough waves for body surfing. The beach as usual was all stones and care had to be taken to drop off a wave before reaching shallow water. It was entirely new to the locals and they turned out in droves to watch, as did quite a lot of the Englishmen on the station.’
Flying duties were concentrated, with as many as three exercises a day. There were quite a few Polish pilots, who Bill thought were slightly mad. On navigation exercises over the Irish Sea, they loved to fly at about fifty feet above the water. While exciting and dangerous, this was emphatically against the rules.
One day, while flying at about one hundred feet, the pilot wanted to use the toilet and asked me if I could hold the aircraft steady. I told him that I thought I could and with that he left his seat and told me to take over, while we were still flying low. I found that flying straight and level was fairly easy, but it was too low. I pulled back on the stick and climbed to about 1000 feet. The pilot returned screaming bloody murder in Polish. While using the funnel to relieve himself, he had fallen over as I climbed and wet the front of his trousers.
With double summertime Bill found himself playing cricket at 9 p.m. in full sunlight. When the course ended, Bill went to his next posting, No. 27 Operational Training Unit, Lichfield, in early September. Training was now more intense, and he knew it would not be too long before he was posted to a squadron. His ‘perfect summer’ was over.
A few days after he arrived at Lichfield, crewing up began. ‘I was standing around looking as confused as the others when I felt a tap on my shoulder. A pilot said, “I’ve got a navigator and wireless operator and would you like to join us?” I said I would and went off to meet the others. On the way he also recruited two gunners.’ The crew now consisted of Sydneysider Tom Davies, pilot; South Australian Mark Edgerley, navigator; Victorian Denis ‘Ned’ Kelly, wireless operator; Bill McGowen, bomb aimer; and two Queenslanders, Col Allen the rear gunner, and Jim Kluver the mid-upper gunner. ‘The first thing to do was to get acquainted—so it was off to the canteen for a few beers. We all got along extremely well and conversation soon flowed. As a crew we spent all our time together for the next three months of our training.’
Before night training began, they were given leave in London. Bill did not drink much at that stage, and followed his mates from pub to pub drinking orange juice. It was no fun watching them get ‘full as boots’, particularly one afternoon when he picked them up at the Windmill Theatre strip show. ‘They were all full and I sober, so it was a shock when we were ejected for making too much noise! I then decided that as they were having all the fun and me none, I would join them. The next few days passed in a rosy glow.’
On 10 November, the crew made their nickel raid—a trip to France dropping leaflets—and returned safely, unlike one crew that was shot down and another that was lost. The flying course was followed by a six-week commando and survival course. In one exercise,
Col Allen and I were dropped off near a bridge outside some large village. Experienced in craftiness by now, we carried cash in our shoes and a bar of chocolate in our blouses. We walked into the village, without being challenged, although the bridges were supposed to be guarded. After a nice morning tea we adjourned to the pub and then when the pub shut at 3 p.m. went to the local pictures. At the railway station we enquired how we could get back to our base and then caught the train to a town nearby. A short walk and we were at the base reporting back. We were congratulated on our success as all the others had been caught. It was pure luck and the fact we had cheated a bit.
Already, the Australians’ larrikin attitude was beginning to irritate the gentlemanly RAF hierarchy. The Australian Imperial Force had had the same effect on British Army staff officers in the Middle East—and during the First World War. Taking leave to London without permission when they finished the course earlier than other crews, Bill’s crew raised the ire of the English commander. ‘There was hell to pay when we got back, but the commanding officer took the reasonable view that he was getting rid of us soon and there was no point taking the matter further. He did let Tom know what he thought of the attitude of the Australians,’ Bill recalled.
Posted to No. 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston in Nottinghamshire, the crew entered their final stage of training in early April. They made the most of the local pubs, and Bill found the daughter of the Elm Tree hotel’s proprietor ‘particularly friendly’. But they were apprehensive about the future, wondering how they would measure up as a squadron crew. When they learned they had been posted to RAAF 467 Squadron at Waddington, reality sank in: as Bill put it, it was now up to them to survive. They left on 20 April 1944.
Around this time, Jim Rowland completed his training at No. 1663 Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit at Rufforth, near the old city of York. One day he and his crew were in Betty’s Bar in York when he was approached by a short and beguiling Scotsman, Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie. Unbeknown to Jim, he was the ‘chief poacher’ for Pathfinder Force, responsible for selecting, recruiting, and training Pathfinder crews. Mahaddie had seen the crew’s fine course results. Jim did not know much about group captains—‘they were superior beings one didn’t see much of, and never in bars, who did things like pinning on your Wings when you finally qualified’.
Mahaddie soon fixed that. With charm, humour and Scottish banter, he extolled the virtues of the Pathfinders. And he was honest about the drawbacks. ‘It’s a long tour,’ he told the group, ‘and I’ll no’ conceal the risks. If ye don’t get results, ye’ll be returned to the main force. But if ye come, ye’ll be part of the greatest team that ever fought, and ye’ll be doing as much against the Hun as any man in Britain.’ Jim and his crew rather liked the idea of joining an elite force. ‘Next morning, I asked the crew what they wanted to do. All of them agreed, and we volunteered for Pathfinders.’