THE RAAF CENTURY

by Neil Sharkey

2021 marks the centenary anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Australian Air Force. The milestone provides a singular opportunity to recognise the achievements of the men and women whose courage and dedication have helped defend Australia and its interests during many of its most significant crises.

United States of America First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt inspecting a WAAAF Guard of honour, Melbourne September 1943

photographer unknown, AWM (VIC1448)

Australia’s commitment to military air power was already a decade old when the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was born on 31 March 1921. Australia first committed to a military aviation capability at the 1911 Imperial Conference and by the close of 1912, pilots and mechanics had been recruited, aircraft ordered, and a Central Flying School (CFS) established. A permanent site for the CFS near Werribee, Victoria was selected in 1913. Today the same site, RAAF Williams at Point Cook, holds the distinction of being the oldest continually operating air base in the world.

The formation of the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) on 22 September 1912 proved timely. When Australia entered the First World War (1914–18) in August 1914, the AFC was one of the first combatants to take to the air. Indeed, it was the only independent British Empire dominion air arm of the war.

The Mesopotamian Half-Flight, the first AFC unit to see action, was flying against the Turks in modern-day Iraq by May 1915. No. 1 Squadron AFC began operations in Palestine in June 1916, while three other squadrons— Nos. 2, 3 and 4 AFC—were in combat over the Western Front by 1917. Four training squadrons, meanwhile, operated in Britain.

A total of 880 AFC officers and 2,840 other ranks served during the war with 410 serving as pilots and 153 as observers. By war’s end the AFC had claimed 527 enemy aircraft at a cost of 175 Australian dead. Throughout the war, however, the AFC operated as part of the Australian Imperial Force— that is, the army—and it remained subordinate to Australian army and British army and air commands.

The AFC was disbanded in 1919. Its successor—the Australian Air Corps—established in 1920, lasted only a year before it was replaced in turn by an alternative vision for Australian air power. Britain’s Royal Air Force, formed in April 1918, served as the model. The RAAF became the world’s second independent air force in March 1921. King George V bestowed the ‘Royal’ prefix to the service on August 1921.

Budget restraints initially limited the fledgling RAAF to 50 officers and 300 other ranks, across five cadrestrength squadrons, until 1924. It grew steadily thereafter. The service focused on training and local defence and its activities during the interwar period included aerial survey and meteorological flights, public displays and search-and-rescue missions.

The pace of RAAF expansion accelerated sharply towards the close of the 1930s as growing tensions in Europe and an increasingly belligerent

Avro Lancaster ‘S’ for Sugar of No. 467 Squadron RAAF was the first heavy bomber to complete an almost statistically impossible 100 operations with RAF Bomber Command, England 12 May 1944

photographer unknown, IWM (TR1795)

Japan provided impetus. New squadrons were raised and bases established in Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory and New Guinea. RAAF personnel increased from under 1,000 in 1935 to around 3,500 by 1939.

The Second World War (1939–45) would be the greatest ever challenge for the RAAF. In six years, the service increased 50-fold. Australian airmen resolutely defended Australia, its territories and approaches, and served in the skies over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; patrolled the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean; and fought in India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, China, the Netherland East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines and Borneo.

Australia pledged aircrew for Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF), under Article XV of the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) on 17 December 1939. Australia promised 36 per cent of the Commonwealth total—806 new aircrew per month—and eventually raised 17 squadrons. Despite London’s early war assurances that ‘Article XV’ airmen would serve in RAAF units, most (27,899) served in RAF, not RAAF, squadrons. These RAAF airmen serving in non-RAAF squadrons were known as ‘Odd Bods’.

Odd Bods and Australians serving in ‘Article XV’ RAAF squadrons suffered the highest loss rate of any Australian combatants during the war. RAF Bomber Command proved an especially dangerous posting, claiming 3,486 Australians—a staggering 35 per cent of all RAAF deaths during the war. One bomber squadron, No. 460 RAAF, with an establishment of 200 aircrew suffered 1,018 combat deaths during the war. The squadron was effectively wiped out five times over.

Australia’s worst fears were realised when Japan entered the war in December 1941. Vastly superior enemy forces overwhelmed four RAAF squadrons based at Singapore. Squadrons and flights defending Australian island garrisons in New Guinea, Ambon and Timor were also destroyed. A devastating air raid launched against Darwin on 19 February 1942, underscored Australia’s vulnerability.

The RAAF soon bounced back. Excellent training facilities, established under the EATS, provided a steady stream of air and ground crews for the South West Pacific (SWPA) theatre. A new local aircraft industry provided the RAAF with hundreds of modern aircraft, including Australian-designed CAC Boomerang fighters, and DAP Beaufort and Beaufighter medium bombers built under license. These joined lend-lease aircraft from the United States—Curtiss Kittyhawk fighters, Consolidated Liberator heavy bombers and PBY Catalina flying boats—among other types.

Aerial view of a No 35 Squadron RAAF de Havilland Caribou (left) and a No 9 Squadron RAAF, Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter, South Vietnam October 1966

photographer Gerald Wallace Westbury | AWM (VN/66/0081/26)

Perhaps the most influential RAAF action of the war occurred at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (2–4 March 1943). Australian and American squadrons destroyed a major Japanese troop convoy bound for New Guinea. Japanese forces on the island were isolated without hope of reinforcement, resupply or evacuation.

RAAF squadrons moved north as the war progressed, operating in the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines. RAAF squadrons based at Morotai played a major role in Australia’s largest ever combined-arms operation, the invasion of Borneo (1 May – 15 August 1945).

By war’s end the RAAF had grown to 182,000 personnel and 6,200 aircraft in almost 100 squadrons, flights and half-flights. The rapidity of the RAAF’s expansion, the pervasiveness of its modernisation and the magnificence of its achievements demonstrated the professionalism and dedication of its personnel, training and tactics. In all, some 216,900 men and women had enlisted in the RAAF throughout the course of the war serving in every theatre. At least 9,780 RAAF personnel lost their lives.

Among those serving the RAAF was the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service (RAAFNS) and the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF). The WAAAF, formed in March 1941, was the single largest Australian women’s wartime service and in 1950 was reborn as the Women’s Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF). All three services paved the way for the full integration of women into the RAAF in 1977. Australia’s first female military pilots graduated in 1988.

Australia’s commitment to its strategic partners, Britain and the United States, ensured that RAAF deployments in the post-war years were commonplace. The RAAF aircraft took part in the Berlin Airlift between 1948 and 1949, transporting 7,030 tons of freight and 6,964 passengers to and from the besieged city. No. 78 Wing RAAF, meanwhile, was deployed to Malta between 1952 and 1954 to bolster British efforts at countering Soviet influence in the Middle East.

The RAAF component of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Japan comprised three fighter squadrons and 2,200 airmen. From 1946, the force was primarily tasked with tracking smugglers and locating caches of weapons and ordnance in western Japan.

No. 77 Squadron RAAF, the last of the squadrons serving in BCOF was being withdrawn from Japan in June 1950 when war broke out in nearby Korea (1950–53). The unit flew ground attack missions against communist forces from 2 July 1950—first in North American Mustang fighter-bombers and later Gloster Meteor jets. By the armistice, No. 77 had flown 18,872 sorties claiming the destruction of 3,700 buildings, 1408 vehicles and 16 bridges. Three enemy MiG-15s were also downed. No. 77, meanwhile, lost 22 Mustangs and 44 Meteors with 42 airmen killed and six pilots captured.

FLT LT Andrew Doig, a RAAF dentist, extracting teeth on a peacekeeping mission, Bougainville May 2000

photographer Poppy Wenham | AWM (P03518.030)

In 1950, Britain sought Australian assistance during the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). C-47 Dakota transports and Lincoln bombers were deployed to Malaya to help quell the 12-year communist insurgency. No. 2 Squadron equipped with GAF Canberra bombers began bombing operations in 1958.

The deployment had long-lasting consequences. A RAAF presence in Malaya, and its independent successor state Malaysia, has been maintained since 1958 at RAAF/RMAF Butterworth, Penang. The RAAF’s presence at Butterworth peaked at 5,000 personnel in the 1970s. Australian Squadrons based at RAAF Butterworth proved a useful deterrent during Indonesia’s Confrontation with Malaysia (1963–66). RAAF units also helped facilitate clandestine ground operations against Indonesian troops in Borneo.

The RAAF contribution to the Vietnam War (1962–1973) peaked at 770 airmen in 1968. De Havilland Caribou transport aircraft of No. 35 Squadron RAAF carried supplies between the Task Force base at Nui Dat and the port of Vung Tau. Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters of No. 9 Squadron RAAF supported army operations across Phuoc Tuy province. No. 2 Squadron RAAF, equipped with GAF Canberra bombers and based at Phan Rang, conducted bombing missions across South Vietnam from 1967.

At war’s end, No. 2 Squadron had flown 11,963 bombing missions and was credited with destruction of 8,637 structures, 15,568 bunkers, 1,267 sampans and 74 bridges for a loss of two aircraft. Small numbers of RAAF pilots served in United States Air Force units, flying F-4 Phantom fighterbombers or as forward air controllers in light aircraft. The RAAF suffered 14 deaths and 60 other casualties before its withdrawal from Vietnam.

RAAF personnel and air assets have played a major role in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions across the globe, operating in Bougainville, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Solomon Islands, Somalia and the Sudan. Globally, th air force has between 500 and 700 people on operations every day, contributing to peacekeeping and humanitarian and disaster relief since 2001. Over 60 air force personnel have lost their lives during operations since 1945. On 2 April 2005 three RAAF personnel were killed in a helicopter crash off the west coast of Sumatra while offering assistance in the aftermath of the Nias earthquake.

The RAAF continues to provide support across a wide spectrum of war-like operations—air superiority, precision strikes, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and air mobility. In 2003, the RAAF returned to combat missions when 14 RAAF F/A-18 Hornets began strike missions over Iraq.

Two state-of-the-art F-35 Lightning fighters of No. 77 Squadron RAAF, Newcastle 28 August 2020

photographer Sergeant David Gibbs ADF RAAF 8165233/396

AP-3C Orion aircraft conducted maritime patrols in the Middle East between 2003 and 2012, and also conducted extensive overland flights of Iraq and Afghanistan on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. They also supported counterpiracy operations off Somalia.

From 2007 to 2009, a detachment of No. 114 Mobile Control and Reporting Unit RAAF was on active service at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan and a detachment of IAI Heron unmanned aerial vehicles has been deployed there since January 2010.

In September 2014 eight RAAF FA-18F Super Hornets, a KC-30 Multi Role Tanker Transport, an E-7A Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and control aircraft were deployed to the United Arab Emirates to combat Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, while C-17 and C-130J transport aircraft have been used to conduct airdrops of humanitarian aid and airlift arms.

The RAAF currently employs some 14,700 personnel at 11 major bases and various commands across Australia. The achievements of the RAAF throughout its history have always been due to the quality of its personnel and the aircraft they have procured, operated and maintained.

Legendary aircraft operated by the service over the past century have included the Supermarine Spitfire (1941–45), Avro Lancaster (1942–46), North American Mustang (1944–60), CAC Sabre (1954–71), Lockheed C-130 Hercules (1958–present), Dassault Mirage (1964–88) General Dynamics F-111 (1973–2010) and McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet (1985–present).

And the future? The RAAF is currently remaking itself as a fifth-generation air power—replacing the F/A-18 Hornet with the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning. The state-of-the-art Boeing Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will replace the aged Lockheed Orion

and the unmanned Loyal Wingman drone will become the first Australianmade combat aircraft for 50 years. A centenary on, the RAAF will continue providing air power for Australia’s security, now and for the future.

Biographies

Annette Holian 25 April 2018, Shrine of Remembrance, ViC

I sought a RAAF commission following my deployment as a civilian surgeon alongside the ADF to the Aitape Tsunami, PNG in July 1998. The performance of the ADF medical teams was exemplary. So professional, and so organised, I vowed to join teh RAAF if I ever contemplated doing such work again...

GROUP CAPTAIN ANNETTE HOLIAN MBBS FRACS FAOrthA

Shrine Governor (2006–present) | Surgeon, RAAF Reserves (2000–present)

Annette Holian became the RAAF’s first-ever female surgeon in June 2000 after being approached to serve with the Australian-led UN force deployed to East Timor. Having previously served alongside an ADF team in Papua New Guinea, Annette knew how well military medical teams could respond to acute humanitarian crises overseas.

After serving in Timor (2000–01), Annette was sent to the Solomons in 2003 and Banda Aceh in 2004, following the Boxing day Tsunami. She undertook tours of Afghanistan in 2008 and 2010 at Tarin Kowt and in 2012 at Kandahar. In 2013 Annette deployed to the Philippines when Typhoon Haiyan devastated the country.

Annette’s most challenging deployment occurred at Nias, Indonesia after the 2005 earthquake. Nine of Annette’s ADF colleagues were killed in a helicopter accident.

Leading Cadet Jackson Scaife undertaking a glider experience flight RAAF Base Williams (Point Cook)

The AAFC has moulded me into better human being. I have learnt how to be a part of a team and how to lead one. The RAAF centenary celebrates a proud organisation that has served its country in times of great turmoil—whether during a world war or a global pandemic.

LEADING AIR CADET JACKSON SCAIFE

Shrine Young Ambassador (2019) l Australian Air Force Cadet, No. 405 Squadron (Sunshine) (2017–present)

Jackson first joined the Australian Air Force Cadets (AAFC) in June 2017. The AAFC is a youth development organisation established in 1941 which draws on the traditions and example of the RAAF. Jackson intends to remain in the AAFC until he ‘ages out’ in December 2022.

Jackson has been involved in a wide variety of AAFC activities including flight and firearms safety training and has undertaken courses in field craft, service knowledge and aircraft recognition, among other electives. Self-discipline, teamwork and co-ordination have been honed through drill and ceremonial activities and Jackson has personally run fieldcraft exercises on bush camps or ‘bivouacs’.

2020 has proved a difficult year for No. 405 Squadron AAFC as its members have been unable to meet in person. Nevertheless, Jackson and his fellow cadets continue to participate in a range of virtual AAFC activities.

Leading Aircraftman Mac Ford August 1943 Shepparton, ViC

I met my former Commanding Officer in the street one day. He put a piece of paper in my hand and asked for five pounds. That’s how I became a foundation member of the Catalina Club. In the years to come we raised a lot of money through Legacy to educate the Children fo the 322 men flying Catalinas who didn't come back. It's been an honour.

LEADING AIRCRAFTMAN HAROLD MACKINLAY FORD

Shrine Volunteer (2002–present) | RAAF aircraft rigger (1943–46)

Harold ‘Mac’ Mackinlay Ford enlisted in the RAAF immediately after his eighteenth birthday in 1943.

Mac undertook training in Geelong, becoming a flight rigger, and ‘first met an airplane’, an Avro Anson, at Base Mallala in South Australia. He subsequently worked on B-24 Liberators with No. 99 Squadron and Catalina Flying Boats with No. 112 Air-Sea Rescue Flight.

In 1945, Mac was deployed to Darwin where he served as part of the operation to bring Australian prisoners of war home from Singapore.

Mac discharged from the air force in 1946, married, and worked on Victoria’s first state-owned hydro-electric scheme. Mac joined the Shrine family as a Volunteer in 2002.

Noel and Tim Ellis October 1981 RAAF Pearce, WA

Tim loved the RAAF. As a boy, he built model aeroplanes and dreamt of becoming a pilot. Former Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Geoff Brown, told Tim’s wife Kay at the funeral that the RAAF had lost a future Chief. Our chairman, Chris Spence, flying a Caribou, scattered Tim’s ashes across the slopes of Mount Kosciusko. Tim was captain of the RAAF ski team.

NOEL ELLIS

Shrine Volunteer (2003–present) |father of RAAF pilot Flight Lieutenant Tim Ellis

Tim Ellis was a Roulette pilot and veteran of the first Gulf War (1990–91). On 29 October 1991, Ellis and four other airmen died when their Boeing 707 tanker transport crashed off the Gippsland coast.

Tim’s widow, Squadron Leader Kay Ellis CSC, an RAAF air traffic controller, was moved to campaign for changes to the way the RAAF handled accident investigations and the treatment of victims’ families. Kay died of breast cancer in 2011 but not before greatly improving the service to which she and her husband had dedicated their lives.

The sterling example of his son and daughter-in-law and pride in their service led to Noel’s seventeen-year association with the Shrine of Remembrance.

Chris Spence with his children Angus and Hanna in the cockpit of a PC-9 1990 RAAF Fairbairn, ACT

The RAAF’s development over the last century has been dramatic, effectively mirroring the trajectory of technical innovation. From fabric and wire Box kites the RAAF has continued to evolve and is now transforming into a fifth generation air force, managing a complex information environment to deliver airpower beyond the aircraft in support of joint operations.

AIR VICE-MARSHAL CHRIS SPENCE AO

Chairman, Shrine Board of Trustees (2012–21) | RAAF helicopter pilot and former Deputy Chief of Air Force

Chris Spence joined the RAAF in 1969 and after earning a Bachelor of Science, completed pilot training in 1974.

Flying Bell UH-1 helicopters with No. 5 Squadron RAAF, Chris conducted disaster relief operations throughout Australia (including Cyclone Tracy) and New Guinea. A six-month tour, monitoring the Egypt-Israel ceasefire in the Sinai with the United Nations followed in 1977.

Chris assumed many significant leadership roles in the RAAF including Commander No. 35 Squadron (1987); Staff Officer to the Chief of the Air Staff (1989); Commander, No. 86 Wing (1995); Commander Training - Air Force at Headquarters Training Command (2000); and Deputy Chief of the Air Force (2001).

Chris qualified on 14 different aircraft types and in 2010 led a small RAAF team at Kandahar, Afghanistan. He assumed the role of Chairman, Shrine Board of Trustees in 2012.

Neil Sharkey is a Curator, Exhibitions and Collections at the Shrine of Remembrance. He developed the Shrine’s Second World War Gallery as well as dozens of temporary exhibitions, including Bomber Command 2013 and The Cinderella Service: Australians Coastal Command 2019.