Author: Adam Purcell

When I was young my father showed me a small blue felt-covered notebook. It was the flying logbook of my great uncle Jack, a Lancaster navigator in WWII. That simple act kicked off a fascination with all things aeronautical. That fascination has now become Something Very Big for me. Here were seven young men, from vastly different backgrounds, all by immense forces well beyond their control or understanding brought together to the one place at the one time - inside that Lancaster as it flew over Northern France in May 1944. They were normal, everyday lads caught up in extraordinary circumstances. I've realised that it's a fascinating story and it's one that deserves to be told. This is the story of That Thing Very Big and where it is leading me. I'm endeavouring to add a new post roughly once every ten or twelve days or so.

Bomber Command Panel Discussion at the Shrine

December 4, 2013June 6, 2016 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

On Tuesday a large crowd of at least 150 people gathered at the Shrine of Remembrance here in Melbourne to take part in perhaps the largest of the events to be held in conjunction with the Bomber Command exhibition currently showing at the Shrine. I was particularly looking forward to this one, and it didn’t disappoint.

The occasion was a Panel Discussion about Bomber Command, chaired by Air Vice Marshal Chris Spence (Retd), Chairman of the Shrine Trustees. The panel was made up of three veterans, covering the entire period from the beginning of the war to the end. Jack Bell was a Wireless/Air Gunner who served in the Middle East early in the conflict before being shot down in a Bristol Bombay and becoming a prisoner of war in Italy and then in Germany. Peter Isaacson was a Pilot with 460 and 156 Squadrons, later famous as the man who flew Lancaster Q for Queenie to Australia (and under the Sydney Harbour Bridge) on a War Bonds tour in 1943. And Maurie O’Keefe was a Wireless/Air Gunner who served with 460 Squadron at the tail end of the war.

Left to Right: Jack Bell, Peter Isaacson, Maurie O'Keefe and Chris Spence — Left to Right: Jack Bell, Peter Isaacson, Maurie O’Keefe and Chris Spence

With Air Vice Marshal Spence asking questions and gently prodding the veterans along, over the next fifty minutes or so the discussion covered the entire war: from enlistment to training to operations and beyond. Peter joined up, he said, after seeing a mannequin wearing an Air Force uniform in a recruitment display in the window of Myer in Bourke St, Melbourne. It was a very smart blue suit, he said, and he decided that he would like one of those. So he enlisted. Maurie concurred. “You used to go to dances,” he said, “and the girls made a bit of a fuss of you if you’d joined up… so that was the main attraction, really!”

The theme continued. Peter related a story of landing a Tiger Moth in a farmer’s field so he could sneak an illicit smoke while at 8 Elementary Flying Training School. Unfortunately he was seen by an overflying aircraft and was as a result confined to barracks, the indiscretion, he said slightly wistfully, “rather spoiling a little romance I had going with a girl in Narrandera…” Once aircrew, always aircrew.

But there were also some desperately sad stories. Jack was shot down after his aircraft stumbled over the German 15^th Panzer Division in Libya. The navigator was killed in the ensuing crash and, after he returned to Australia following three years, three months and three days as a prisoner of war Jack went to visit his dead crewman’s family. He could see in the mother’s eyes the unasked question, ‘why my son and not you?’ It was, he said, the hardest thing he ever had to do.

Following the formal part of the discussion, the microphone was opened to questions from the floor. And there were some very good questions, too. One was relating to Schräge Musik, the fixed upward-firing guns fitted to nightfighters which were so devastatingly effective and utterly unsuspected by Bomber Command until quite late in 1944. What was it like, the questioner asked, to encounter Schräge Musik? Incredibly enough, a first-hand answer was available. In the audience were at least ten other veterans, and one of these – Jim Cahir – was actually in Stalag Luft III with Jack Bell. Jim’s aircraft was shot down by Schräge Musik over Germany one night. He first became aware of it – “too late, of course” – when shells started hitting his aircraft. Having someone there who, well, was there, gave the answer a real meaning and brought the subject home in a very personal and tangible way.

Inevitably at a public event of this nature the discussion eventually turned to Dresden and, as Peter Rees emphasised both in his book and in his talk last week, there were some passionate defences of the rationale and of the attack itself, both from the floor and the panel.

Following the discussion someone suggested organising a group photograph of all of the veterans present. In all there were thirteen in the photo, though I suspect one or two others may have slipped off before we had a chance to get everyone gathered near the front of the room. Unfortunately I was unable to get everyone’s names so only the following are identified in the photograph below: Back row, L-R: Peter Isaacson, Bruce Clifton, Wal McCulloch, [unknown], Gerald McPherson, Allan Beavis, John Wyke, Gordon Laidlaw, Jean Smith, Maurie O’Keefe. Front row, L-R: Bill Wilkie, Jack Bell, Jim Cahir Other veterans who were present but for whom I cannot match a name with a face were Jim Carr, Col Fraser and Ron Fitch. (If you are able to identify any of the unknowns in this photo, please get in touch)

The opportunity then arose to mix a little bit over a cup of tea. I knew a few veterans (among them Allan Beavis, a Mosquito navigator who I visited at home in Geelong earlier this year) but most were new to me. Most notably, I recognised a tiny golden caterpillar with ruby red eyes on Bill Wilkie’s tie. When I asked him about it he immediately opened his wallet and pulled out his Caterpillar Club membership card, which he carries around with him everywhere even today. He had been a 15 Squadron rear gunner flying out of Mildenhall when his Lancaster was shot down over Germany in January 1945.

There were of course other people to see as well. Robyn Bell was there and I finally got to meet Neil Sharkey, the curator at the Shrine responsible for the current Bomber Command exhibition. Happily I was also able meet a man named Geoff Easton. His father was Arnold Easton, a 467 Squadron navigator who was operating at much the same time that my great uncle Jack and his crew were at Waddington. Arnold’s logbook, which I have a copy of, is one of the most precise examples I’ve ever seen and has been a great help in my research so far. But apart from a few emails about five years ago I’d never actually met Geoff. We had a good chat and he offered to send me copies of his late father’s wartime correspondence and a few photos of a very special visit he made recently to what’s left of ‘Old Fred’, Lancaster DV372 in which Arnold completed 20 sorties (and Phil Smith flew at least once), at the Imperial War Museum’s Duxford site. That will be the subject of a future post (it’s a wonderful story). Geoff has since sent me the files and I’m going to enjoy diving into them to see what nuggets come to the surface.

On my way out, I saw Gordon Laidlaw, the 50 Squadron pilot who I first met when visiting the exhibition a few weeks ago. He was waiting for his lift to arrive and I couldn’t resist one last photo of him: In all, a fantastic event. The Shrine of Remembrance has embraced the Bomber Command theme in the last few months and the interest from the public has been obvious, with big crowds turning out to the two events which I’ve been able to attend in the last week. Peter Rees said to me in an email after his talk last week, “It really feels like the book has tapped into something out there. Maybe people have long sensed [the airmen] were given a bum deal; if I’ve made it accessible for them to understand, then that’s a good outcome.”

The same could be said of the Shrine’s efforts over the last few months. It’s quite strange – but also very encouraging – to see big banners around the city of Melbourne emblazoned with the legend ‘BOMBER COMMAND’ with a photo of a crew in front of a Lancaster. It’s far too late for the vast majority of those who were there, of course, but while we still have some left, events and exhibitions like these allow the stories to be told and the memories to live on.

Download a podcast of the discussion from the Shrine website here.

© Adam Purcell 2013

Lancaster Men at the Shrine

November 28, 2013December 6, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

Peter Rees, author of the highly successful book Lancaster Men, delivered a talk about his book tonight at the Shrine of Remembrance here in Melbourne..

Despite the shocking weather there was a good-sized audience of perhaps 100 people present, all of whom listened in some awe to a very thorough presentation which covered the main themes of the book and told some good stories. Peter made certain to mention that Lancaster Men was his publisher’s choice for a title, not his – there were, as he rightly points out, other aircraft flown by Australians in Bomber Command! He told some stories from ‘behind the scenes’ of researching and writing the book, like Ted Pickerd, a 463 Squadron veteran who who greatly assisted Peter’s research before he died last year. They would meet weekly at the Australian War Memorial to pore through documents and archives together, Ted still being in possession of his navigator’s eye for detail and accuracy coming to the fore. He also said that since publication the book has received strong support, so much so that it’s now on its third print run (and indeed the Shrine shop ran out of copies of the book tonight, like the Australian War Memorial did during the Bomber Command weekend in Canberra in June), and as a direct result of writing it he has received so many further stories from people who have read the book that he is planning a follow-up volume in a couple of years time.

A lively discussion followed the talk, with Dresden getting much of the attention – and, incredibly, adding their input from the audience were four Bomber Command veterans, three of whom had in fact been on the Dresden trip and who could add recollections of what they were told at briefing for that raid. That added a very personal, and quite immediate, touch to the discussion at hand.

Someone mistook me for an official photographer and asked me to organise a group photo of Peter with, yes, the Lancaster Men.

Left to right, we have Len Swettnam (a bomb aimer), Gerald McPherson (rear gunner), Peter Rees (author), John Wyke (another rear gunner), and Gordon Laidlaw (pilot).

Peter cites the lack of recognition given to Bomber Command and especially its returning veterans at the end of the war as one of the reasons he wrote his book. This event, of course, tied in with the Bomber Command exhibition which is now showing at the Shrine. And next week at the Shrine will be a panel discussion with, among others, Peter Isaacson, perhaps one of Australia’s most well-known Bomber Command airmen. It’s all evidence of the increase in awareness of Bomber Command in recent times.

At least a little bit of the credit for that should go to Peter himself. His very readable book has made some of the extraordinary stories of the ordinary airmen of Bomber Command accessible to a mass audience. That can only be a good thing, if the stories are to live on.

Bring on Volume Two!

The Shrine has placed a podcast of Peter’s talk on their website. The download is here.

Ladies’ Day with 463-467 Squadrons Association, Sydney

November 25, 2013November 27, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

The 463-467 Squadrons Association (NSW) holds a luncheon every November, on the Sunday after Remembrance Day. For as long as anyone can remember it’s taken place in the rather classy surroundings of the Killara Golf Club in Sydney’s North Shore, and this year was no different. I was able to wrangle the day off work so I flew up from Melbourne last Sunday to attend.

I was staying at my sister’s place in Marrickville so I travelled to Killara by train, walking to the station in teeming rain. One of the stops along the way was Town Hall and here I noticed a tall, slim older gent and a middle-aged woman among the passengers getting on the train. I caught a fleeting glimpse of his tie and it looked rather familiar. They sat across the aisle from me in an otherwise nearly empty top deck compartment and continued the conversation they had been engaged in when they boarded the train. First I overheard the word ‘Killara’, then, a little later, ‘Southwell.’

Clearly, I decided, we were going to the same place. So I moved across the seat and introduced myself. The older gent was Tom Hopkinson, a 463 Squadron mid-upper gunner. He was up from Canberra for the function, staying with his second cousin Pamela who was travelling on the train with him. We had a great little chat on the way and while sheltering from the rain waiting for our lift to arrive at the station to take us to the golf club. It’s not very far away and last year, I thought to myself, I got sunburnt as I walked it…

A nice little crowd had gathered in the atrium area when we arrived. Most of the usual suspects were around, though there had been one or two cancellations as a result of the weather (it was still bucketing down outside).

The next couple of hours saw some good conversation amongst forty-odd guests with twelve veterans in total present. I found myself seated between Ron Houghton, a 102 Squadron Halifax skipper, and my frequent neighbour at these sorts of events, 49 Squadron rear gunner Hugh McLeod. The Golf Club put on a good meal again and, as is traditional, Don Browning proposed a toast to the ladies, present and elsewhere, for their support of their veteran husbands, fathers and grandfathers, which is the reason that this function is known as Ladies’ Day.

A remarkable photograph followed. By my count we had three pilots, a navigator, a bomb aimer, three wireless operators, two mid-upper gunners and two rear gunners in the group. Between them they covered almost every position in a typical heavy bomber crew. Unfortunately there were very few Australian flight engineers, and none were present here or I would have suggested we find ourselves a Lancaster and go flying.

Seated, left to right: Ron Houghton (102 Squadron Halifax pilot), Don Huxtable (463 Squadron pilot), Don Browning (463 Squadron wireless operator), Harry Brown (467 Squadron wireless operator)

Standing, left to right: Hugh McLeod (49 Squadron rear gunner), Roy Pegler (467 Squadron bomb aimer), Max Barry (463 Squadron rear gunner), Albert Wallace (467 Squadron mid-upper gunner), Ross Pearson (102 Squadron wireless operator/air gunner), Bill Purdy (463 Squadron pilot), Tom Hopkinson (463 Squadron mid-upper gunner), Don Southwell (463 Squadron navigator)

I also made sure that I got a photo with Albert Wallace. In June last year I received a comment on somethingverybig.com from a veteran called Albert Wallace. Unbelievably, it was a different Albert Wallace, who lives in Canada. At the opening of the Bomber Command memorial in London earlier that year he (Canadian Albert) was amazed to meet an Australian veteran of the same name who had also been a mid-upper gunner. I helped both Alberts get in touch with each other, though unfortunately they did not get a photo with both of them together!

Left to right, in this photo we have Ron Houghton, Hugh McLeod, Albert Wallace and myself.

A couple of photos to finish off, then. Bryan Cook and Don Huxtable:

Hux had a minor heart attack a few months ago but though he looks a little more frail than I have seen him in recent years it clearly has not affected his mischievous nature. Here he is clowning about before the group photo:

Again, a great little function and well worth making the trip up from Melbourne. I’ll be back next year.

Confusing the Nightfighters

November 18, 2013December 23, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

Imagine you are a German nightfighter controller, sitting in a bunker during the Second World War. Listening posts have picked up radio transmissions from navigation beams, warning messages to British shipping, and signals from H2S or Fishpond radar devices as aircrew warmed up their equipment in England. You know the British are planning a big raid tonight and the nightfighter units have been warned. Now the first reports are coming in from observers and radar stations around the continent – large concentrations of raiders are approaching across Belgium and Northern France, heading south-east. But there’s another big force heading towards Denmark. Could they be after Berlin again?

The decisions you make next will play a significant role in the success or otherwise of the nightfighters defending the Reich. Is the force over Belgium a distraction? That’s been their tactic over the last couple of months. Or will the northern group just drop mines along the coast of Germany and scarper again? If you decide the northern threat is ‘just’ a minor mining operation you can send all your fighters to intercept the other force, which could be bound for anywhere in Germany. But then you run the risk of leaving Berlin undefended. So you might decide that the northern force is the real threat, and move your fighters to cover Hamburg from where they can quickly get stuck into any bombers crossing the top of the country. But that leaves the southern force free to attack any part of southern or central Germany untouched by fighters, should it turn out to be the ‘real’ bomber stream. Perhaps you should split your forces and send half to the north and half to the south?

This was the situation facing the German nightfighter controllers on 18 March 1944. As it happened the northern force was indeed a diversion, sent to drop mines in the Heligoland area off north-west Germany. The distraction kept many fighters to the north while the ‘real’ bomber stream slipped through almost unmolested, reaching their target – Frankfurt – having lost only four known victims to the fighters. In all the fighters accounted for just eight out of a total of twenty two casualties that night, a low loss rate probably influenced by the confusion brought about in the nightfighter control system by multiple apparent bomber streams.

A few days later two big forces of aircraft again appeared on German radar screens heading north east over the North Sea: a mining force headed for Kiel and the main bomber stream, which turned sharply south east halfway across the water. This time they flew a route that appeared to threaten cities like Hanover or even Berlin, reinforced by Mosquitos making diversion raids on both of those cities. The tactics successfully disguised the true objective of the bombers, which once again was Frankfurt (indeed, the running commentary that directed the nightfighters did not mention Frankfurt until seventeen minutes after the first target indicators went down there). Nineteen bombers out of a total of 33 that failed to return were seen to fall to nightfighters on this raid. This time the mining force did not distract the fighters unduly but the convoluted and somewhat novel route used still caused some confusion about the actual target and so the loss rate was relatively low for a city-busting raid like this one.

The Frankfurt raids demonstrate two facets of the tactics used extensively by Bomber Command in the spring of 1944 in an attempt to confuse the German nightfighter control system. Most raids carried out in this period were accompanied by aircraft on diversions, harassing raids or mining operations, and used elaborate routes designed to conceal the identity of the real target for as long as possible. On these two occasions the tactics appeared to have been successful, but there were many raids where despite the best planning and intentions, things simply didn’t turn out for the bombers as they were hoping.

One example came a few days after the Frankfurt raids, on 24 March 1944, when the Main Force bombed Berlin. They took a conventional route to the north via Denmark and were supported by Mosquitos attacking Kiel, Münster and Duisburg and a large force of aircraft from Training Groups making a diversionary sweep near to Paris without dropping any bombs. The controllers completely ignored the Paris sweep and nightfighters got stuck into the bomber stream from the island of Sylt all the way to the target and back out again. They accounted for sixteen victims – but worse was to happen to the bombers. A northerly wind that was far stronger than expected blew many crews off track and over the heavily defended areas that the route had been planned to avoid. Many, as a result, fell to flak and a total of 72 aircraft failed to return. The best-laid plans were brought unstuck by nature.

Perhaps the most infamous case, however, was the disastrous raid on Nuremberg a week later, on 30 March 1944. The bombers were routed from England down towards Charleroi in Belgium. There they would turn east for a long leg of some 250 miles, which was planned to thread the bombers safely between the heavy defences in the Ruhr and those of Koblenz to the south. The main force was to be supported by a group of Halifaxes simulating a large force possibly threatening Berlin that would actually drop mines in the Heligoland Bight before returning home, and small forces of Mosquitos to bomb Aachen, Cologne and Kassel as diversions from the main raid. The Germans decided, correctly, that the diversionary raids were just that and concentrated their fighters at two radio beacons between Cologne and Frankfurt. Unhappily for the bombers, their route passed smack between both beacons. Updated winds broadcast to the bombers were incorrect and many were off-track as a result, scattering the stream. In clear conditions over a very thin layer of low cloud, lit by a bright half-moon, and trailing spectacular white contrails caused by an unfortunate atmospheric quirk, their progress simply could not be missed. The bombers fought a running battle all the way to the target and more than sixty of the 94 that failed to return fell to fighters.

This operation had all of the usual tactics applied to it with the diversions and indirect route, but it still resulted in the highest losses of the entire war for Bomber Command. Undoubtedly the moonlight contributed, and the unexpected contrails drew attention to the bomber stream, but luck also played a part. The German controllers guessed that the northern force was a diversion and sent their fighters to the south – and just happened to pick the two fighter beacons that straddled the planned route of the bomber stream. It was a lucky guess that brought so many fighters to the area transited by the bombers, and unlucky chance that conditions were just about perfect for nightfighting when they got there.

The choice about where to deploy their forces was one that the German nightfighter control system faced night after night. Sometimes they got it wrong, and the bombers slipped through unthreatened. But frequently they got it right, and the bombers suffered severely as a consequence. The tactical cat and mouse continued throughout the war and remains a fascinating part of the story of the bomber offensive.

———

Sources:

Details of German early-warning system from Isby, David C (Ed.), Fighting the Bombers: The Luftwaffe’s struggle against the Allied Bomber Offensive

Details of Nuremburg raid mainly taken from Martin Middlebrook (1973), The Nuremburg Raid

Frankfurt and Berlin raid details and additional information on Nuremberg from Bomber Command Night Raid Reports Nos. 556, 560 and 567.

Temora

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

About 330km west of Sydney, in country New South Wales, lies a small town called Temora. It’s perhaps most famous these days for the superb aviation museum which has taken up considerable real estate at the local airport since its formation in 1999. Home to a significant collection of airworthy warbirds, most owned by Museum President and Founder David Lowy, the Museum is by far the best in Australia in terms of its airworthy fleet, and is perhaps the closest that we come to something like the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in the UK. It puts on flying days every six weeks or so to display the aeroplanes in the element in which they belong – the air.

It was to one of these flying weekends that I went in September 2009, in the back seat of a Piper Cherokee flown by a friend of mine.

It was a great flight over in beautiful conditions, and I distinctly remember the chaos as we arrived in the circuit at Temora before the flying display started, just one of many light aeroplanes doing the same thing. There was so much traffic that we had to go around twice before we managed to land and at one stage we were on final for the runway and there were no fewer than four other aircraft in front of us. But once on the ground, the flying display was exciting and punctual and the organisation was superb.

But as I was wandering around the airfield I noticed a familiar sight. The hangar that now hosts the Temora Aero Club looked remarkably similar to many of the old hangars at Camden, which was the airfield from which I was doing my own flying at the time. Could Temora have a similar wartime heritage?

It could indeed. Temora was the site of 10 EFTS, the longest-running Elementary Flying Training School in the Royal Australian Air Force. Close by the Aero Club (which, yes, is in a Bellman Hangar, the sole remaining example out of six which were originally there) is this simple memorial:

A sign near the entrance to the airfield records that upwards of 10,000 personnel passed through 10 EFTS during the war years, and that at its peak it had some 97 Tiger Moths on strength for pilot training. Four satellite fields scattered around the countryside were used when the congestion at the main airfield became too much. Tom Moore, who would eventually fly with 458 Squadron, said that the satellite fields were just that – fields – requisitioned off farmers with no buildings or facilities other than a bench from which the instructors could watch their students flying around.

Like any EFTS, however, there were accidents during training at Temora. Sometimes they were almost comical – like one chap who “landed 20 feet off the ground and the plane just come down like that and the wings folded down around him,” as remembered by a 61 Squadron pilot named John Boland – but sadly, sometimes they were fatal. There are 13 of the simple white headstones denoting Commonwealth War Graves in Temora General Cemetery.

One of my favourite stories about Temora, however, comes from Lionel Rackley, eventually a 630 Squadron pilot, and doesn’t concern flying at all. He describes it at the Australians at War Film Archive:

Air crew trainees went into a place and they were there for a month, six weeks, and went out again. But the ground staff people were there, so the town belonged to them, really. In those days, we used to wear a forage cap, and air crew trainees wore a little white flash on the front of the forage cap, that denoted us as air crew trainees. And these ground staff, they had set word around Temora that out at the aerodrome there, there’s a venereal hospital. And all those fellows around town with white flashes on their caps, they’re the patients…

It’s not too far from the airfield into Temora itself, and after the flying display finished that September afternoon in 2009 my mate and I meandered in (without a white flash in our caps) to find a pub for dinner. We stumbled the two miles or so back to the airfield a few hours later, much as I imagined countless trainee aircrew had done, almost seventy years before.

The real meaning of ANZAC Day

October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

I read this article in the newspaper today and thought it worth a share.

From smh.com.au: From the Archives: ANZAC Day

It’s a lovely yarn of ANZAC Day comradeship, beautifully told by one of Australia’s most unique yarn-tellers, Peter FitzSimons. Well worth a few moments of your time.

Bomber Command at the Shrine of Remembrance

October 22, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne has gone all Bomber Command on us. As I’ve posted previously, there are a number of events happening there over the next couple of months. All tie in with a major temporary exhibition which opened earlier this month in the Shrine Visitor Centre. Bomber Command: Australians in the air war over Europe 1939-45 is open until 1 May next year. It’s only a fairly small exhibition but it covers much ground concerning the Australian experience of Bomber Command, from enlistment, through training to operations and afterwards, including a significant section on prisoners of war. There are photos, artwork and memorabilia that have all been put together in a professional manner, and it is already beginning to draw visitors from all across Victoria and other parts of Australia. I visited last week with Robyn Bell, one of my Bomber Command contacts in Melbourne.

I suspect that if you hang around this exhibition for long enough you’ll see a fair number of Bomber Command veterans coming through for a look. And, happily, so it was when we visited. There was an older gent wearing a blazer and an Air Force tie looking at the mannequin in the photo above, talking to a middle-aged man about parachutes. Robyn recognised him as Gordon Laidlaw, a 50 Squadron pilot who she has been in touch with before, and talking to his mate later I discovered that they had come up from Mornington, an hour or so south of Melbourne, especially to have a look at the exhibition. It was great to chat briefly with Gordon. He was also talking to another pair of visitors who were in Melbourne on holidays from Perth who had come to the Shrine to see the exhibition:

Rosemary Grigg (on the left) was overwhelmed to meet a real-life Bomber Command veteran – Gordon – because her father had been an airman too. Allan Joseph Grigg was killed on 22 July 1944 in a Wellington accident near Lossiemouth in Scotland, where he had been serving with No. 20 Operational Training Unit. She is keen to find out more about her father’s service so I’ve given her a few pointers on where to begin. As always, the fact he was Australian makes life much easier.

Moving around the exhibition, Robyn found her small contribution. She has been liaising with Neil Sharkey from the Shrine who was responsible for setting up the exhibition, and he was looking for some Window, the foil ‘chaff’ used to confuse German radar. As it happened Robyn had a small piece and was happy to allow it to go on display:

What was most unexpected for me, though, was in a frame hanging at the end of one of the exhibition partitions. We had almost finished our walk around when I found it:

Regular readers of SomethingVeryBig (those, at least, with very good eyesight) will recognise the lower photograph, the only known photo of the entire crew of B for Baker. And the one above it? It’s a portrait of a ridiculously young-looking Phil Smith, taken in London during the war. It was in fact sourced for the exhibition from this website, and has been credited to Mollie Smith at my request:

It’s clear that, in the last two or three years in particular, Bomber Command is finally receiving the recognition it deserves. An official memorial was opened last year in London. A Bomber Command clasp is now in the process of being awarded to surviving veterans, before being extended to the next-of-kin of those killed during service or who have died since. And the Canberra weekend is now the third largest annual event held at the Australian War Memorial (behind ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day). There’s no doubt that interest in Bomber Command, and respect and recognition for those who were involved, is growing. It’s great to see some of that interest manifesting itself in this exhibition. More people will visit and learn about Bomber Command and the men who were part of it. The stories will live on.

And that’s the most important thing.

Look what I found!

October 17, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

So I’m visiting the Bomber Command exhibition at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne with Robyn Bell. Full report to come when I get home, but look what I found around a corner!
It is, of course, a portrait of a very young Phil Smith with the only known photo of the whole crew of B for Baker. Nice to see some recognition of them in a major Shrine initiative.

EVENT: Bomber Command Panel Discussion, Shrine, Melbourne, 03DEC13

October 13, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

In perhaps the most significant event to be held at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne alongside the current Bomber Command special exhibition, a group of veterans including Wing Commander Peter Isaacson will take part in a panel discussion about the experiences of Australians in Bomber Command. Chaired by Shrine of Remembrance Chairman Air Vice-Marshal Chris Spence AO (Retd). This promises to be a very interesting discussion. Details below:

Date: Tuesday 03 December 2013

Time: 12.30pm start, running for approx. 90 minutes

Cost: Free, but a gold coin donation appreciated.

Bookings are essential and can be made through this link on the Shrine’s website.

I’m normally in Sydney with the 463-467 Squadrons Association on ANZAC Day so, despite having lived down here for almost three years now, I still haven’t managed to meet many of the Melbourne-based Bomber Command crowd. This event should offer a good chance to redress that!

EVENT: Lancaster Men – a talk by author Peter Rees at the Shrine, Melbourne, 28 November 2013

October 13, 2013October 13, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

I reviewed Peter Rees’ book Lancaster Men: The Aussie Heroes of Bomber Command on SomethingVeryBig back in May, and I reckon it’s one of the better Australian books about Bomber Command to come out in the last few years. As part of a number of Bomber Command-focused events scheduled at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne over the last few months of 2013, Rees will deliver a talk about his book at the end of November:

Date: Thursday 28 November 2013

Time: 17:30 for 18:00

Cost: Free, but a gold coin donation is welcome.

Bookings are essential and can be made online via this page.