Battle Order 204

A Bomber Pilot's Story

By Christobel Mattingley

Allen & Unwin

Copyright © 2007 Christobel Mattingley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74175-161-1

Contents

'Wings' by Cecil Roberts,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (1) Bomb Doors Open!,
1 A Passion for Planes,
2 Name, Rank and Number,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (2) D Dog,
3 Slow Boat to Britain,
4 Loving Life,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (3) Target Dortmund,
5 Confronting Death,
6 Airborne Again At Last,
'High Flight' by John Magee,
7 Wimpeys and Crewing Up,
8 Heavies and 'Butch' Harris,
'An Airman's Prayer' by Hugh Brodie,
9 625 Squadron,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (4) Hit!,
10 Holland, Happy Valley and France,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (5) Put on Parachutes!,
11 J Jig,
12 Erks and Armourers,
13 Holland, Happy Valley and Operation Hurricane,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (6) Take Up Crash Positions!,
14 'Three of our aircraft are missing',
15 'Bold, cautious, true and my loving comrade',
16 G George and D Dog,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (7) A Perfect Landing,
17 A Fractured Skull and a Headless Crew,
BATTLE ORDER 204 (8) Outstanding Devotion to Duty,
18 'It is so good to be alive!',
19 Victory At Last!,
20 'In hospital again. Nothing serious. Don't worry.',
21 Going Home,
Epilogue,
About the Others,
Writing Battle Order 204,
Acknowledgements,
About the Poems,
Glossary,
Sources,
Wings,

CHAPTER 1

A Passion for Planes

David was only six when his father hired a launch to take the family on an expedition to explore Twenty Day Island in Bass Strait, about twelve miles from the fishing village of Bridport where they always spent the summer. The launch's engine had sputtered into silence near the rocky shore, when David heard the drone of another engine. There was not a boat to be seen in any direction.

Then, above in the sun-bright blue, David glimpsed something extraordinary. An aeroplane! The first he had ever seen! David nearly jumped off the launch into the water in his excitement. He waved and waved. And watched and watched until the little plane disappeared beyond the horizon. He knew then that he wanted to fly too. One day. When he was a man. Bobbing about in a boat over choppy sea was an adventure. But surely it could not compare with rushing through the air, up among the clouds, looking down on the world spread out below like a multi-coloured tapestry. The pilot was pioneer aviator Bert Hinkler and David's passion for planes had been kindled.

In 1931, when David was eight, Charles Kingsford Smith came on a barnstorming visit. On 1 March, Tasmania had its first Air Pageant at the recently established Western Junction airfield. Interest was intense and so many people flocked to see the show that the newspapers reported Tasmania's first traffic jam, with cars banked up for a mile or more.

Impatient to reach the display, David hopped out of his father's Essex car and eagerly walked the final stretch. His unmarried aunt, a feisty woman who lived with the family, gladly parted with ten shillings to go up with the famous pilot on a brief circuit beyond the airfield.

'Can I go up too?' David begged.

'No!' said his parents, very firmly.

In those Depression years, times were tough for his father, a dentist whose patients could not always pay their bills. And because David was their youngest son, his mother always worried about him. He had to content himself with inspecting the amazing machine on the ground and questioning his aunt over and over about every detail of the flight.

David cut photos of the historic event out of the paper. Then over the next months he saved the tuppence his uncle gave him each week for a pie from the tuckshop, until he had enough money to buy a big scrapbook, into which he carefully pasted all the cuttings. Over the years he added other items about aviation as he found them. All the while, watching and waiting for his chance to fly.

By the time David was thirteen he spent most summer Saturdays on the water. He loved the wide brown Tamar River studded with swans, its tidal waters ebbing and flowing between reedy banks where native hens ran with raucous calls. Training in the mornings, racing in the afternoons, year by year he had progressed from the Junior rowing crew to the Seconds and at last to the Firsts, rowing at Number Three or Bow. He loved the teamwork, the camaraderie, the shrill voice of the young coxswain chanting, 'In. Out. In. Out,' and the deep voice of the coach shouting instructions across the water through his megaphone. He thrilled to the thrust, the glide, the power generated by four sets of shoulders, four pairs of arms pulling on the oars. It seemed like the steady beat of wings making the boat fly across the water.

Winter Saturdays were different. On wild wet days, or when fog seeped up from the river, or dark clouds shrouded the Western Tiers, he stayed home, disappointed but determined, plugging away at the maths he would need if he was ever to become a pilot. But when the clouds were light and playful and the sun danced over Mount Barrow, he would slap together two sandwiches thick with cheese, peanut butter or blackberry jam, wrap them hastily and shove them in a pocket, stuff two apples in the other, and grab his bike, shouting 'I'm off, Mum!'

Whistling, he would pedal uphill out of town. When he reached the flat road that led to the Western Junction airfield, speeding by the clipped hawthorn hedges still speckled with red berries, he laughed as he felt the wind rushing through his hair. He counted down the minutes - fifty, forty-five, forty - until he would catch his first glimpse of a windsock, a hangar, a plane ... The Northern Tasmanian Aero Club had set up its headquarters in a shed at the airfield and members gave joy flights at the weekends. David soon learned to distinguish between the different types of Moth aircraft, boxy little biplanes constructed of wood and fabric. There were Gipsy Moths, Fox Moths, and a Leopard Moth. But his favourite was the Tiger Moth. Each Saturday he promised himself that one day he would learn to fly a Tiger Moth.

He prowled round all the machines, watching preflight checks, listening to conversations between pilots and mechanics, thrilled when someone called 'Lend a hand, will you, lad,' or even, 'Want to look at the instrument panel?' The sights, sounds and smells would later fill his dreams.

At school, David persevered with maths, but English and history were his favourite subjects, especially poetry and modern European history. As he scanned the papers for any items about aviation, he could not help noticing news about the growing unrest in Europe. At first, small paragraphs were tucked away in back pages, behind local and Australian news. But as the months went by they moved closer to the front of the paper and had bigger headlines, as the Nazis grabbed more and more power in Germany.

In March 1938, German troops entered Vienna, the once-proud capital of the great Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Austria was declared part of the German Reich. By August, as Germany began to mobilise, the name Hitler had become a household word, evoking anxiety and fears for the stability of the precarious peace established after the Great War.

In September, half a world away, schoolboy David studied cartoons of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain caving in to Hitler at the infamous Munich Conference, which established Nazi Germany as the...