Air Traffic Control, Bomber Command-style

June 30, 2013June 25, 2014 ~ Adam Purcell

Around the time that Jack Purcell and his crew were on active service with 467 Squadron (January – May 1944), Bomber Command was routinely sending forces numbering six or eight hundred aircraft on large-scale raids against German cities. Even the ‘smaller’ raids on French targets still involved a couple of hundred aircraft each. Landing everyone safely at their airfields after the operation, in the dark, with no lights or radar, and contending with fatigued aircrew, battle damage and the odd German intruder attack, required the development of some remarkably sophisticated and highly efficient systems, and thus laid the foundations for what we now know as air traffic control.

There were a number of local variations depending on which Group the airfield fell under, but the basic procedure was that incoming aircraft would call up the control tower as they approached their home airfield to identify themselves. Flying Control would respond with instructions to either land immediately if there was no-one in front of them, or to circle the airfield, stacked above earlier arrivals at 1,000’ intervals. As No. 1 was in the circuit at 1,000’ and preparing to land, No. 2 would be circling at 2,000’, No. 3 would be at 3,000’ and so on. No. 1 flew around the circuit, following the ‘Drem’ lights located around the airfield, and the pilot would report on the radio as he passed each position: ‘crosswind’ as he passed over the upwind end of the runway, perpendicular to it; ‘downwind’ as he passed the mid-point of the runway, flying parallel to it (which is also where he would begin a slow descent from 1,000’ to land), and ‘funnels’ as he made the final turn to line up with the runway, facing into wind. Then he would wait for the green light from the aerodrome controller (who was located in a caravan parked next to the landing end of the runway) before landing and taxying off the runway to dispersal. Meanwhile, No. 2 became No. 1 and would leave the stack. He would adjust his circuit spacing and speed to position himself one reporting position behind the aircraft in front. As each aircraft left the bottom of the stack, everyone else still circling above them could be stepped down a level until, in turn, they were at the bottom and next to land.

Arrival over base could be inside 10/10ths cloud. In this case, according to 49 Squadron veteran rear gunner Hugh McLeod, the navigator would use the ‘Gee’ navigation aid to home in to the airfield. He would be calling instructions to the pilot in much the same manner as the bomb aimer would while over the target: “Starboard a bit, Skipper… hold it there… should be coming into view now”. Hugh says it was accurate enough to take the aircraft all the way to ‘funnels’ – quite astounding accuracy for the time. In the event of an intruder alert (“this happened to me on three occasions,” Hugh said), an emergency call would come over the radio, lights everywhere would be turned off and the arriving bombers would all scatter until the all-clear sounded or they diverted to other ‘dromes.

It’s interesting to study how the ‘Quick Landing Scheme’ worked in practice on a typical operation. My interest was piqued by an entry in the 467 Squadron Operational Record Book, following a Berlin raid on 15/16 February 1944. Pilot Officer Clive Quartermaine, flying in Lancaster LM338, said this in his interrogation report:

Had to circle base for 40 minutes before landing. Quick Landing Scheme disappointing.

This was an intriguing comment, I thought, and warranted further investigation. Happily, the ORBs for both 463 and 467 Squadrons record landing times for each aircraft at Waddington. I plotted reported landing times in five-minute blocks, for all aircraft landing between midnight and 1 a.m. LM338 landed at 00.53 (in red). The resulting table looks like this:

Time	Aircraft Landing Times
0000-0004	0001	0001	0003	0004
0005-0009	0008
0010-0014	0010	0011	0012	0014
0015-0019	0015	0015	0015	0017	0019
0020-0024	0022	0023
0025-0029	0025	0029	0029
0030-0034	0032
0035-0039	0036	0039
0040-0044	0040	0041	0043
0045-0049	0045	0047	0048
0050-0054	0053
0055-0059	0056

During this hour, thirty aircraft landed at Waddington. The longest gap between arrivals is five minutes (it comes immediately before Quartermaine landed). Without a modern-day radar controller judging approach paths and in darkness, the odd ‘blow out’ of a few extra minutes in the landing sequence is quite understandable. Shorter intervals are far more common and, assuming the times recorded in the ORB are indeed accurate, there were an amazing three arrivals in a single minute at 00.15. Tellingly, this was about 40 minutes before Quartermaine landed, so was quite possibly about the time that LM338 arrived overhead – to find a large stack of aircraft already awaiting their turn to land.

In the next 40 minutes, as Quartermaine and his crew circled overhead the field, a total of 21 aircraft landed. At a rate better than one aircraft every two minutes, this is actually a reasonably efficient use of the runway given wartime conditions (blackout, no lights, no radar control, fatigued crews etc). There is insufficient evidence about the timing of when other aircraft arrived over the field, but there is a good chance that other captains faced similar waiting times.

So while P/O Quartermaine may well have felt a little hard-done-by having needed to wait for so long, it was a simple case of too many aircraft arriving at once and not enough runways for them to use. This basic cause of airborne delays is still a common occurrence in modern-day air traffic control. Nothing ever changes… someone still has to wait!

Descriptions of aerodrome control come from C07-014-123, The Trenches in the Sky by Dan Conway, and C07-050-023 Takeoff to Touchdown by Don Charlwood. Hugh’s recollections were related in a phone call in May 2013.

Flying around the bases

June 18, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 3 Comments

In the very back of my great uncle Jack’s wartime logbook is a list of places and dates. It records the places at which he served, from Air Observer School right through to the Squadron. Jack evidently wasn’t the world’s most fastidious record keeper because the list is missing some places that are shown on his service record, but it does list all of the airfields he was stationed at.

The last eight names on the list are in the UK. When I was over that side of the world in 2009 I hired a light aeroplane and a local instructor from Tatenhill Aviation and flew over four of them, plus a number of others.

Tatenhill was a satellite airfield for 27 Operational Training Unit, RAF Lichfield. As it turns out, Lichfield itself is not very far away. Just after we took off we turned left – and there it was, less than seven miles to the south.

At first it took me a moment to recognise it as an airfield. Parts of a runway and a number of hangars are still extant, but on top of what used to be a runway is now a great big Tesco warehouse. The northern corner, with half a runway, some taxiways and a couple of blister hangars, is the best-preserved section of the old airfield, though now in considerable disrepair.

Morton Hall was not an airfield, though it is very close to the remains of RAF Swinderby. It became No. 5 Group Headquarters a few months later but it appears that it was a venue for lectures about security and significant physical training at the time that Jack was there (C07-014-067). It was a prison when I drove by in 2009 and is now an immigration detention centre, so no photos. On my flight however we did see Swinderby.

I was quite pleased to discover what appeared to be a relatively well-preserved RAF airfield when I visited on the ground a day or so later – but just a few months later the whole site was flattened for development.

But enough of that. Onwards with the aerial tour through Jack’s logbook. Winthorpe was a Heavy Conversion Unit, where Jack and his crew got to grips with the Lancaster for the first time.

One corner of the airfield is now the Newark Showgrounds, and across from those is the fantastic Newark Air Museum. There’s very little remaining of the original airfield, and the runways, which were used for gliding until recently, are no longer fit for use. But at least one corner of the old airfield still has some sort of aviation activity taking place on it.

Bardney is only a few miles from Lincoln. From the air, the triangle of the runway layout is still visible, though most of the hard surface has been removed.

The old airfield has reverted to the farmland it one was, with thousands of chickens now occupying sheds on what used to be the runways. Jack was only here for a few months serving on 9 Squadron, losing his pilot in a ‘second dickey trip before flying operationally himself. The crew did record some training flights from here however.

After losing their pilot Jack and (most of) his crew were posted to another Heavy Conversion Unit, this time at Syerston, where they joined up with Phil Smith. We skirted around Syerston on my flight but didn’t actually go over the top so I have no aerial photos of it – though I did visit the RAF Gliding squadron that now occupies the site on weekends.

The last unit in Jack’s logbook is of course 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. This is where, on 10 May 1944, he and his crew climbed aboard B for Baker and took off in the direction of Lille on their final flight. Waddington remains an active RAF station and retains very little of its wartime ‘feel’, though remnants of the original triangle runway layout are still used as taxiways.

There were a number of other airfields that we also flew over on this trip, with names like East Kirkby, Conningsby, Metheringham, Bottesford and Tollerton. What was perhaps most telling for me, used to the wide open spaces you get flying in Australia, was how close by everything is. I logged 1.5 hours for this trip, out and back, and we flew over at least ten separate wartime airfields that I could recognise, with a good few others nearby that I couldn’t identify. It’s not hard to imagine how crews could get lost and land at the wrong airfield, particularly during the wartime blackout, and the proximity of the bases would have considerably heightened the collision risk.

Most poignant, however, was at the most easterly point of our flight, near East Kirkby. From there, the coast is about fifteen miles away. That coast line was extraordinarily significant to the aircrew of Bomber Command. On the way out, it marked the end of friendly territory – beyond it was the enemy. And on the way home some hours later, it meant they were back among friends.

Bonus Photo Post: Bomber Command Commemorative day, Amberley, Queensland

June 9, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

While many of us were in Canberra last weekend for the annual Commemorative Day Weekend, simultaneous events were also being held elsewhere around the country. Groups of veterans, families and interested others gathered to remember the men and the deeds of Bomber Command at ceremonies held in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane.

I had a ‘spy’ at the Brisbane event, held at RAAF Amberley (itself the site of the wartime No 3 Service Flying Training School, to which Phil Smith was posted in 1941). Diane Strub, the Honorary Secretary of the 467-463 Squadrons Association in Queensland, was there and sent me these photos:

It looks like a fair-sized crowd was there, with a good number of veterans present (I counted 23 in the above photo). Everyone looks a little warmer than we were in Canberra!

Good show, Brisbane. And thanks to Diane for the photos.

Bomber Command in Canberra 2013

June 3, 2013May 31, 2015 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

It was a very wet weekend in south-eastern Australia.

It rained so much in Adelaide on Friday that the automatic rain gauge at the airport gave up. 70mm fell in Melbourne on the same day. It was still raining when I walked to the train station in Sydney on my way to the airport on Sunday morning and, as we were taxying out, the heavy jets weren’t so much ‘landing’ as ‘splashing down’. We were in cloud all the way to Canberra.

Things were not looking good for the sixth annual Bomber Command Commemorative Day.

Though the tarmac was noticeably wet on arrival, the sky showed signs of clearing as I took a taxi to the Australian War Memorial. On arrival I discovered that, because the grass near the Bomber Command sculpture was still rather squelchy underfoot, the ceremony had been moved to the Commemorative Area within the War Memorial itself. As the clouds gradually moved off parts of the crowd were soon sitting in that glorious autumn sunshine for which Canberra is famous.

The Commemorative Area was a spectacular location for the ceremony.

The crowd was sitting underneath the thousands of names on the Roll of Honour. A statue of an airman, on the eastern side, in turn cast his bronze gaze down onto the gathered crowd. To the rear, immaculately dressed members of the current iterations of 460 and 462 Squadrons, Royal Australian Air Force, were lined up in parade order. Those veterans who could were invited into the Hall of Memory to watch and take part in the wreath-laying, at the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. As the bugler sounded the Last Post, the notes echoed off the cloisters and faded away to silence. The singing of the Australian National Anthem, with the support of the Australian Rugby Choir, was spine-tingling stuff. The ceremony was enhanced by the atmosphere of the place it was in.

The speakers, too were excellent: in particular, former Defence Minister and Leader of the Opposition Dr Brendan Nelson who is now the Director of the Australian War Memorial. His opening address, delivered mostly without notes, was impressive. He quoted the words of Charles Bean which are scribed on the wall in the Welcome Gallery of the War Memorial:

Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved; and here we guard the record which they themselves made.

Some of those who made that record, of course, were the veterans of Bomber Command.

Following the ceremony itself came an organised photo opportunity in the shadow of G for George, with almost all the veterans present. My count is 32 (including one who is not in this photo):

And then to lunch. Once again, the networking and reunion opportunities offered at this function for someone like me in this country are second to none. Among others, I met a Mosquito navigator named Alan Beavis, and his good mate Alan Pugh, who was training at 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit (Winthorpe – Jack Purcell was there in 1943) at the end of the war. And of course I also caught up with many of the usual suspects again – Don and Ailsa McDonald, the three other Dons Southwell, Huxtable and Browning, Keith Campbell, Harry Brown and Tommy Knox (the latter commenting to me, ‘you can really see it this year… age is certainly catching up with them!’). There was some good discussion on a few potential projects for the next couple of years, much reminiscing and many stories.

The Southwells dropped me off at the airport again, and I flew home to Melbourne with a notebook full of ideas and addresses to follow up on.

Bomber Command, over the last few years, is finally beginning to see some recognition for its deeds during the Second World War, and acknowledgement of the legacy it left. This was a common theme among many of the speakers at the weekend this year. Peter Rees (who recently published Lancaster Men and is rumoured to be planning a follow-up for the next couple of years) spoke briefly at the lunch and cited this as one of his key motivations. Air Marshal Geoff Brown, current Chief of Air Force, also gave a good talk at the lunch about what today’s Air Force can learn from the bomber offensive. His main points were that a coalition of nations in a common cause is far more powerful than trying to do it alone, a reminder of the importance of close links with technological and research organisations, how vital it is to gain and maintain control of the air in a combat scenario, the continued value of electronic countermeasures and the critical importance of teamwork and people all united by a common purpose and common aims. He effectively demonstrated that, while the airmen of Bomber Command fought their battles so long ago, and while they fought a battle so unique in scale and circumstance, what they did has continued relevance in current operations – and that in that very practical way their legacy will live on.

Remembering the history – the raids, the stories, the men – is of course vital. But learning from that history and applying the lessons in practical ways in modern times can also form part of the legacy of Bomber Command. It is far too late for most of those who served, but I hope that some of the veterans who were in Canberra over the weekend can take some comfort in the knowledge that this legacy is living on and will continue to do so.

A photoset by the Australian War Memorial’s official photographer is available to view here.

Bomber Command in Canberra – Sneak Peek

June 2, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

Slight change in location due to the rain in Canberra, but the annual Bomber Command ceremony is about to begin at the Australian War Memorial. Full report to come later but here’s a quick photo to start off.

Book Review: Lancaster Men: The Aussie Heroes of Bomber Command, by Peter Rees

May 29, 2013October 13, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 3 Comments

Published in April this year, Lancaster Men: The Aussie Heroes of Bomber Command is a new book by Australian journalist and author Peter Rees. It’s one of many books by Australian authors to be published on the subject over the last few years, and I think it’s one of the better ones.

Inspired by the stories told to him by Kathie Pickerd, daughter of Ted, a 463 Squadron navigator and later one of Australia’s highest-ranking Air Force officers, Rees began interviewing a large number of Bomber Command veterans and came to realise, he says, “that history had treated them harshly. It was time for their stories to be told in their own words.” The book, then, does not claim to be a definitive account of Australia’s role in Bomber Command – the Official Histories take care of that. Instead, it’s based on personal accounts taken from interviews, transcripts and memoirs, both published and unpublished. The result is a more or less chronological account of the experiences of Australians in Bomber Command, from enlistment to operations and from the earliest bombing raids to Dresden and beyond, as seen by those who were there. Given the vast spread of the campaign, over time, over different units and over a large geographical area, this is an appropriate way to look at things, though the concentration on Australians sometimes omits the airmen of other nationalities who flew in the same crews.

Rees’ journalistic talent is evident in his vivid descriptions and the book is well-written in an engaging style. The focus on the personal shows in the way that he tends to use first names for the main ‘storytellers’ throughout his book, and in some of the stories of off-duty life in wartime England, which arguably were as much a part of the experience of Australians in Bomber Command as the operational trips themselves. He also covers some interesting ground looking at life under the bombs – notably the effects of the 22 November 1943 raid to Berlin, which caused a tiger to escape from the zoo. The beast “made its way to the Café Josty, gobbled up a pastry and promptly [fell] down dead. […] Although nearly all the major hotels had been wrecked, the premier hotel of the Third Reich, the Adlon, survived relatively intact, but it had no heating and could muster up only cold cuts and potato salad.” (p.138) Stories like these add life to the history and are an important reminder that there were indeed people in those cities too.

There is a good section putting D-Day in the context of the war in general, and Bomber Command’s operations in the context of that (Chapter 26 and on and particularly p.242-243), and a very interesting discussion of the politics between Australia and Britain when dealing with Australian bomber crews, as evidenced by a ‘manpower fiddle’ that left 463 and 467 Squadrons short of aircrew in April 1944, when the British wanted to avoid disadvantaging RAF squadrons after the Australians demanded tour-expired airmen be sent home to fly against the Japanese (p.181 and on).

And then we get to Dresden, for which Rees says the reputation of the airmen has been unfairly tarnished. He is at great pains to note that it was not Arthur Harris who chose Dresden as a target (despite his copping much of the blame in the aftermath of the war), but Churchill (p.342). Rees’ sympathies clearly lie with the airmen but he gives, in my view, a reasonably balanced examination of the politics of the raid, explaining the origins of the inflated casualty figures and looking at the Dresden Stadt Museum to see current German views on the issue. The airmen who took part, he argues, “have had to wear the blame for the destruction wrought on the city for far too long due to their political leaders distancing themselves from responsibility.” (p. 356)

The only problem with Lancaster Men is that Rees is a journalist, not necessarily a historian. As a result historical rigour is not necessarily always present and he tends to take quotes directly from secondary sources without checking the original documents for accuracy. For example, he quotes the 467 Squadron Operational Record Book but cites another book (Dan Conway’s The Trenches in the Sky) as its source. He also takes figures for aircraft losses on the 10 May 1944 Lille raid directly from Rollo Kingsford-Smith’s memoirs without cross-checking with the ORBs… and so perpetuates the error that seven aircraft were lost on that trip from 463 and 467 Squadrons (it was only six – the mistake probably has its genesis in Nobby Blundell’s Squadron histories). He gets the figure right on a later page but the contradiction hasn’t raised any flags in the editing phase. Errors like these are an occupational hazard when dealing with personal accounts of history, particularly when those accounts were created upwards of seventy years after the events described, so it would have been nice to see a little more cross-referencing occurring.

But otherwise Peter Rees has painted a vivid picture of life as an Australian in Bomber Command. Lancaster Men is well-written, engaging, shocking, exciting, funny and sad, and well worth a read.

Lancaster Men (ISBN 9781741752076) is published by Allen & Unwin, and retails for AU$32.99.

An interview with Peter Rees, as broadcast on Radio National on ANZAC Day 2013, is available for download here.

It’s all a bit much, really.

May 17, 2013May 31, 2015 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

Anyone interested in Bomber Command is probably aware that last night marked the seventieth anniversary of what, in popular culture, is probably the most famous air raid of all time. The ‘Dambusters’ raid of 16/17 May 1943 – more properly known as Operation Chastise – was the daring, novel, unique, dangerous, costly and mostly effective operation by the RAF’s 617 Squadron that used the so-called ‘bouncing bombs’ to destroy two of Germany’s great dams and severely damage a third. The morale boost to Britain, in the middle of 1943 during a dark patch in the war, was arguably greater than the material effect on Germany, but the raid entered the popular consciousness and made the leader of 617 Squadron, Guy Gibson, into one of, if not the, most famous airman in Bomber Command.

So naturally there have been many activities and events to commemorate exactly seven decades since this auspicious event. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster has made a fly-over of the Derwent Dam in Derbyshire, England, where the squadron practiced before the raid. There’s been black and white footage of bouncing bombs on the television news in Australia (though Sky News showed the later ‘Highball’ devices which were never used operationally and were more or less spherical in shape, rather than ‘Upkeep’s cylindrical bomb, and dropped by Mosquitos rather than Lancasters, but I’ll let that slide for the moment). There have been commemorative services at Woodhall Spa (the later home of 617 Squadron), Lincoln Cathedral, RAF Scampton and in Germany. The Royal Air Force has even been live-tweeting wireless messages and key events from the raid, seventy years to the minute since they occurred.

It’s all a bit much really.

It’s an awful lot of fuss over just one operation, just one night of a very very long war. Taking absolutely nothing away from the 53 aircrew who were killed on the raid – out of 133 men, all of whom were already highly experienced – but there has indisputably been a very strong focus on this raid in the years since, perhaps at the expense of the rest of Bomber Command. So much so, in fact, that in much the same way as ‘Battle of Britain’ means ‘Spitfire’ to the average Englishman or Australian, to the detriment of the Hurricane and all the other parts of Britain’s defensive effort that summer of 1940, ‘Lancaster’ has come to mean ‘Dambuster’. And don’t worry about all the rest of Bomber Command, thanks very much.

Much of this is probably due to the Dambusters film of 1955, based on Paul Brickhill’s 1951 book. So much so, in fact, that one newspaper in the UK chose to mark the 70th anniversary with a collection of photographs… from behind the scenes in the making of the movie. Which, all rather interesting, but really??? It’s a sign that the anniversary has become all about the legend, and much less about the blokes who did the job that night – and indeed, the blokes who did the job every night.I mean no slur on 617 Squadron, either to the original members or anyone else involved with it. I mean no slur against Barnes Wallis, the engineer who came up with the concept. I mean no slur against the makers or the actors in the movie (which is probably still one of the greatest war movies ever made). But it would be really nice to see some of the interest, scholarship and mythology associated with the Dambusters carry over into the rest of Bomber Command.

I’ll close with a quote on the Professional Pilot Rumour Network forum by a member calling himself ‘Chugalug2,’ who in this case says it far more eloquently than I can:

The pride that the Royal Air Force has rightly expressed since WW2 over the subject exploits of this thread was not similarly expressed over those of Main Force, when almost every night was one of Maximum Effort.

The Dambusters played an incredible part in the Second World War bomber offensive. But there were many others, just like them, who played an equally important role and who have not been nearly so recognised. Think about them on May 16 each year, too.

Talking

May 15, 2013May 8, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

I did my first research project about my great uncle Jack at the age of about 12. It was for an entry in a national history competition and my project was to write a series of letters as if Jack had been writing home from the war. This work led directly to our discovering that Phil Smith, who had been Jack’s pilot, was still alive and was living in Sydney. We first met Phil and his wife Mollie in early 1997.

There then came a break of a few years. We stayed in contact with Phil and Mollie and occasionally travelled to Sydney to visit them and while I was aware of ‘Uncle Jack’ the bug had not yet bitten in earnest to find out more about him myself. In 2003 I took a year off between school and university, and that’s when I had some time to once again delve into the subject. Sadly the catalyst for this work was news of Phil’s death in March of that year. The starting point this time was all the original documents that we had about Jack, which I scanned and wrote explanatory notes about to put on a CD-ROM and share around my family. Then university and moving out of home got in the way and it was some years before I felt the urge again and started the work that has evolved into SomethingVeryBig.

The slightly frustrating thing is that I never had the opportunity to speak to Phil in detail about his experiences. I was quite young when I first started researching the story of B for Baker. This phase of work was what led us to him in the first place – and the second phase started after he passed away. I remember one discussion, over the lunch table at Phil and Mollie’s home in Sydney, when my father was asked to read out Phil’s wartime letter about the time his troop ship hit an iceberg in mid-Atlantic (a story in itself) while Phil added comments here and there, but that’s the only occasion that I can recall where we spoke directly about his experiences. I’m lucky that since his death I’ve had access to the superb archive of letters and photos and other documents that his father carefully collated while Phil was in the Air Force, but there’s nothing like actually talking to the people who were there for a ‘feel’ of what it was like.

Which is why I’m slowly collecting veterans, so to speak – contacting as many as I can, writing letters (yes, real letters, with stamps and envelopes and everything), phoning up and generally picking their brains. Each has a story to tell and each little insight adds to what I understand of what it was like to fly for Bomber Command. I can’t ask my great uncle or any members of his crew what their war was like – but I can still talk to other veterans. While it’s not quite the same story, they would have shared many similar experiences with each other so I reckon it’s enough to build a picture of the ‘feel’ of the times they lived in and the tasks they carried out.

Sixty Nine Years

May 10, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

10th May, 1944.

Lest we forget.

This post was published at 21.57 on 10 May 2013. At the same time on the same day in 1944, the crew of B for Baker took off from Waddington, bound for Lille in northern France.

They did not come back.

ANZAC Day 2013

April 26, 2013October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 3 Comments

Sydney turned on an absolute sparkler for ANZAC Day yesterday. The sky was clear, blue and brilliant, it was warm in the sun (but with that delicious autumn chill to the air in the shade) and the air was almost perfectly still. Perfect conditions, then, for an ANZAC Day march.

I flew up from Melbourne early, catching the fast, clean and efficient (but horribly expensive) airport train into the city centre and arriving with enough time to spare to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere for a little while. The contingents from some current naval ships in particular, stepping off as I crossed Castlereagh Street, displayed some very impressive marching. I headed for Elizabeth Street and the usual starting point for the Air Force veterans.

At first, I couldn’t find many from 463-467 Squadrons. But then the banner arrived, safe in the care of Bryan Cook, and suddenly they all melted out of the crowd:

In all there were six veterans marching, with one more traveling along the march route in a truck provided by the Australian Army. They were Don Browning, Hugh McLeod, Don Huxtable, Bill Purdy, Don Southwell and George Douglass, with Harry Brown in the truck. As usual, shortly after setting off from Elizabeth St we reached King St… and stopped, again, for about forty minutes:

I placed my end of the banner in the safe hands of veteran pilot and rear gunner Hugh McLeod for a few moments, and quickly snapped a photo of an animated conversation which was taking place between Bill Purdy, David Southwell and Don Browning (who had again come prepared for the long wait with his own walking-stick-with-inbuilt-stool):

As much as we complain about the delay I’ve found in the last few years that it’s during this stop that some of the best conversation happens among those marching. And this year we were joined at this point by a group of people wearing kilts and carrying bagpipes and drums who inserted themselves into the column in front of us. They looked suspiciously like a pipe band… They turned out to be the Castle Hill RSL Pipe Band, who had already ‘done their bit’ making one round of the march course earlier in the day. But one of their members was also marching in memory of a relation with the 466-462 Squadron Association, which was the unit in front of us. So they decided to support him and ‘go round again’. All of which worked in our favour. They sounded superb, and at the end of the march I overheard Don Southwell exclaim, “That was the best march of recent years…. we were all in step!”

A friend was watching the ABC Television coverage of the march and spotted us as we went past the cameras. He later sent me a photograph he had taken of his screen:

At the conclusion of the march I tried to find the band to thank them for their music but they had done like pipers generally do and taken off in a hurry to the nearest pub. Meanwhile, we headed across the road for lunch at the Pullman Hotel, the same venue as has been used in the last couple of years. Once again, the food was great, the service attentive and the conversation outstanding. I was lucky enough to find myself on a table in the company of no fewer than three of our veterans (Don Huxtable, Hugh McLeod and George Douglass). At one point, Association President Don Browning was telling a story about a raid he was on, with appropriate deadpan asides added from Don Huxtable who had been on the same trip (“I recall the weather was awful… do you remember that Don?” “Fifty-foot ceiling, mate!”). When Browning related that his bomb aimer had called for them to go around again, I heard a grim chuckle from Hugh: “I’ve experienced that too…” There were stories flying left right and centre and it was a very enjoyable afternoon. We were again joined by the young musicians of the Australian Army Cadet Band, who played a few numbers and got a certain old pilot to drum along with them:

In all, a really good day. There were lots of familiar faces to catch up with, and a few new people to talk to as well. I even met Col Edwards, whose uncle was Bob Coward, a 463 Squadron mid-upper gunner who was killed over Holland in 1944. Col first got in touch with me through the Lancaster Archive Forum and again through a comment on this blog. Bob Coward’s crew took a second dickie pilot along with them on one of their operations. The pilot? One Don Huxtable, who at yesterday’s lunch was sitting at the same table as Col, three seats along.

A few further photos from the day follow. Click on the image for full-size.

A top day, and well worth the flying visit to Sydney. I’ll be back next year.

Four posts in a week! There will consequently be a short delay before I publish the next update on SomethingVeryBig. Next post is due on May 10.