Australian aircrew and ground staff in the Mediterranean 1940 to 1945

Units and personnel

Shortly after the declaration of war in September 1939, British authorities made a request to the Australian Government. They urged prime minister Robert Menzies to prepare an air expeditionary force that could be sent overseas.

Australia's War Cabinet initially approved this idea. But it was quickly replaced by an alternative scheme, the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). The EATS trained aircrew from across the dominions to serve in British units.

Mediterranean squadrons often had a mixture of Commonwealth personnel, even those designated as RAAF.

The number of RAAF personnel in the Mediterranean theatre varied during the war. The official RAAF figures say there were more than 3,300 personnel in late November 1942. By March 1945, this had decreased to about 1,300 personnel.

Several RAAF units operated in the Mediterranean theatre.

The first to arrive from Australia was No 3 Squadron RAAF. It made its first operational flight in North Africa in November 1940.

No 3 Squadron served through all the Mediterranean campaigns, in Libya, Syria and Italy. It was part of Operation Compass at Bardia. The squadron was still in Cervia, Italy, in May 1945, when the fighting in the Middle East ended.

No 3 Squadron was a permanent unit of the RAAF, formed during World War I. Some squadrons serving in the Mediterranean were formed in Australia and then deployed to the Middle East. Others were formed in the Middle East or were transferred from the UK.

For example, No 458 Squadron RAAF transferred from England to North Africa and the Middle East in 1942, flying its twin-engine Wellington bombers.

Locations of operations

Individual Australians and air units served in North Africa, the Middle East, Italy, France and southern Europe, including Greece and Crete.

Each one of these places had its own challenges in terms of landscape and weather. The largely flat desert landscape had heat, dust and sandstorms.

The Italian Alps and winter conditions posed additional dangers, including snow, rain and muddy airfields.

There was also the expanse of the Mediterranean and other seas, such as the Adriatic.

This film shows RAAF personnel living in muddy, water-soaked Italy.

 

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Outside the dangers of combat, there were enjoyable periods. One veteran recalled how his unit had transferred from the Mediterranean to a Red Sea posting. He noticed:

Looking down on the sea we saw quite an array of maritime life – numerous turtles, thousands of porpoise, even crossed over a pod of whales

[David Vincent (1991), The RAAF Hudson Story, p 255.]

Another veteran recalled evening entertainment:

In No. 450 Squadron, singing was a popular evening's amusement in the pilots' mess. There was a Scottish R.A.F. officer with an excellent voice and a vast repertoire of songs (not obscene) suitable for group singing. The Scot was supported by an R.A.A.F. sergeant pilot. The sergeant pilot performed on the ukulele, was a professional writer, and composed a number of topical verses, which were set to popular tunes, notably "Lili Marlene", and in the course of time became squadron songs … Visitors from other squadrons joined in these musical evenings and, assisted by a few drinks, the parties were invariably a great success and definitely elevating to morale.

[Allan Seymour Walker (1961), Medical Services of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force with a section on women in the Army Medical Services]

During World War II, the Australian Comforts Fund (ACF) ran hostels and leave centres for Australian personnel in Florence, Rome and Venice, as well as Alexandria, Jerusalem, London, Singapore and several in Australia.

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Types of operations

The range of work varied greatly. Australians could be flying at very low altitude above the sea to launch torpedoes, flying out of Tobruk during the siege to observe the enemy, or flying ground support for the Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces.

Duties carried out by RAAF squadrons and Australians serving in RAF units included:

• ground support of Allied troops (Battle of Bardia, Syria–Lebanon campaign, Siege of Tobruk, Battles of El Alamein, Italian campaign)
• supporting Yugoslav Partisans through attacking enemy formations or dropping supplies and agents
• anti-submarine warfare
• escorting Allied shipping convoys
• attacking enemy shipping
• reconnaissance
• strategic bombing – especially of Italy
• defending Allied territory from air attack
• evacuating medical cases from the desert front lines to rear hospitals
• alerting the navy of the position of survivors.

The RAAF aircrew had limits placed on the number of operational hours they could fly before being relieved of duty and transferred. It was not the same for the ground staff who stayed in the Mediterranean for years.

Listen to Albert Jospeh Koorey, an Australian who began the war as a soldier in the AIF, then transferred to the RAAF and later served in an RAF squadron. His squadron flew from Italy, supporting Yugoslav Partisans and dropping secret agents into enemy territory.

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Aircraft

An aircrew's weapon was their aircraft.

The types of aircraft aircrews flew in the Mediterranean often changed during the war. This was partly due to advances in technology and the development of new warplanes.

For example, No 3 Squadron began flying Gloster Gladiator biplanes and other slow aircraft across the North African deserts in late 1940. By 1944, the squadron was flying an advanced fighter aircraft – the North American P-51 Mustang.

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Sometimes, new aircraft were unsuccessful.

For example, No 459 Squadron had to replace its new Lockheed Venturas because they were unsuitable. The bombers were not ideal for missions over the Aegean islands at night.

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A squadron usually had one type of aircraft at a time.

Shortages in the Mediterranean in the early years of the war meant that some air units had to borrow planes from other units. Maintaining and flying a mixture of aircraft complicated everything. All planes had to be mechanically ready for operations, and different planes needed different parts and procedures.

Aircraft could arrive at an air base boxed up in crates or protective packaging. They had been shipped from overseas and had to be assembled. Some were waiting at other air bases in the Mediterranean theatre to be collected. Some flew the long journey from the UK.

During the early years, some fighter aircraft destined for Malta were brought partway on an aircraft carrier. The Australian pilots were also on board. They had to take off from the ship and fly to Malta even though they had no training in seaborne aircraft launches.

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Ground crew

Ground crews are essential in air warfare. They make sure aircraft are maintained, refuelled and rearmed before operations.

Just like aircrew personnel, Australian ground crew sometimes found themselves transferred to non-Australian units.

For example, in 1941, the Australian ground staff of No 450 Squadron RAAF were temporarily combined with the No 260 Squadron RAF to form No 260/450 Squadron RAF. The RAF unit had aircraft and pilots but lacked ground crew, so they operated as part of this combined unit for 10 days.

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Just like the Army, the Air Force had to contend with the sand and hot conditions of desert combat.

One pilot recalled how his single-seat aircraft was kept in working condition:

It always amazed me, under the conditions that we flew in in the desert, the sandstorms and the dust storms and the worst of it, how the ground engineers, the fitters who keep and maintain, sustain the airworthiness of them.

[Transcript of Oral History Recording (402231) Donald, Jack (Flight Lieutenant) [AWM 4 July 1990, p 14.]

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Airfields

Static airfields are permanent bases, and there were some around the Mediterranean. But many airfields were temporary – established quickly for brief operations.

In North Africa, for example, squadrons had to be quickly relocated. After the Second Battle of El Alamein, No 3 Squadron advanced 80 km in 10 days and operated from 5 airfields.

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The Allied and Axis forces repeatedly fought over the same territory in North Africa. This made the situation more difficult. An Allied airfield could become an Axis airfield and then revert to the Allies in a short time.

When the Axis advanced rapidly, there was a danger of the airfield being overrun. Some RAAF ground staff were trained to use small arms in case the enemy, especially paratroopers, attacked their airfield.

Sometimes, the flat, hard-packed sand-and-gravel surfaces of the desert landscape were helpful. They permitted the rapid manual development of Allied landing grounds.

In one case, an Allied aircrew approaching a crowded advanced landing ground found an alternate landing site by flying very low over the nearby flat, gravelly plains. They carried out a simple test of the ground's bearing strength: they tried landing. If they didn't crash, then the site could be used.

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Experiences of Australians

Aircrews faced not only the threat of the enemy but also the demands and risks of the physical environment.

Mostly, they were flying operations behind enemy lines. So, if they crash-landed or parachuted from their damaged aircraft, they might land in enemy-held territory and risk being taken as prisoners of war (POWs).

Behind enemy lines

In early 1943, Australian newspapers reported on the survival of a seriously wounded fighter pilot, Sergeant-Pilot David Borthwick from Geelong, Victoria:

He lost his desert rations and water bottle when he baled out, but he managed to keep alive by sucking the dew off Arab tombs and easting desert beetles.

['RAAF pilot tells of desert rowing', The Herald, 1 April 1943, p 5.]

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Cold and snow

Later on, in Italy, airmen had to deal with another extreme – the cold.

One Australian airman had to make a forced landing behind enemy lines in Axis-controlled Italy. After being hidden by Italian villagers, he joined other Allied soldiers who had escaped enemy POW camps. There were also Italian civilians in the group:

The walk along precipitous mountain tracks through ice and snow was so harrowing that three Italian children and one of the women died.

[David Wilson (2005), Brotherhood of Airmen, p 103.]

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Rough sea landings

Besides the desert and freezing snow, aircrew had to deal with the rough sea in some Allied-controlled areas.

On 18 March 1942, Howard Charles Lester, a RAAF fighter pilot based on Malta, was shot down over the Mediterranean Sea. His plane was attacked from behind by a German fighter.

The enemy gunfire wounded Lester's legs and put holes in the aircraft's tank. Fumes from the glycol coolant in the tank temporarily blinded Lester.

When Lester's aircraft hit the sea, he was too weak to climb into the small inflatable dinghy. He stayed floating for hours before an Allied air–sea rescue launch picked him up.

The rescue crew nearly gave him up for dead because of his weak pulse, but he was transported to a Malta hospital. As well as suffering from his wounds, Lester, like most of the island's population, also suffered from a lack of food. He ended up weighing only 35 kg. He stayed in the hospital for 6 months before being evacuated to England.

Lester's wife, Ella, recalled her husband's experience after he died in 1985. Read the transcription.

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