By Derek Royal 

Aboriginal fighter pilot Len Waters flew 95 combat missions against the Japanese during World War II, leading dangerous missions deep inside enemy territory. For his efforts he acquired a variety of gongs and awards, including the 1939-45 Star, the Pacific Star and several commendations for bravery. He also achieved the rank of Warrant Officer and returned home a national hero. Unfortunately, once he returned to civilian life, Waters’ heroics meant nothing and he reverted to being just another black man. Not a man of courage, intelligence and discipline. Not a man who’d risked his life for his nation. But a man whose skin colour would attract contempt and prejudice for the rest of his life.

As a boy, Waters was mesmerised by flight. He’d run around dusty Euraba Mission near Boomi, northern NSW, with a wooden propeller carved from his mother’s hand. He’d pretend to fly and imagine he was Charles Kingsford Smith, Bert Hinkler or any other being fortunate enough to conquer the sky.

Deep in his heart Waters dreamed of being a pilot. But given the discrimination and ill-treatment aborigines faced at the hands of their white brethren and the sheer challenges, both physical and intellectual, demanded of fighter pilots, the odds of achieving his dream were a million-to-one. Waters somehow beat the odds to not only live the dream but to prove that given equal opportunity, a black man, just like any other man, had the capability to achieve anything he desired.

Born at Euraba Mission on 20 June 1924, the fourth child of Donald and Grace Waters, Len learnt about the great aviation pioneers through his mother, who always read to him about the wonderful exploits of the likes of Kingsford Smith and Hinkler.

“My brother always had his head in the clouds,” Len’s sister Florence said. “He believed there was nothing more beautiful than being in the sky.”

Through dedication and a studious disposition, Waters performed well in school. So well that a teacher by the name of James Wolfe believed he had enormous potential. “James Wolfe believed that with the right tuition, Len had the intelligence to become a Rhodes Scholar,” Florence said.

But unfortunately, Len was forced to leave school at the age of 13, to join his father as a bush worker in country Queensland. The combined labours of father and son provided the family with much-needed cash to survive. But perhaps more importantly, the hard labour instilled in Len a work ethic and mental fortitude that became his signature.
 
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 altered the course of history. And when in the latter years of the conflict Japan revealed its desire to annex Australia, Waters joined the air force to confront the enemy.  
Len began training as a flight mechanic with the RAAF in August 1942 and being technically minded, he completed the course with ease. As a youngster, Len had helped his father maintain his old ‘T’ Model Fords, which proved to be an invaluable grounding. Even the final RAAF test of reassembling a dismantled Tiger Moth engine blindfolded didn’t pose any problems for the young aborigine. However, despite his success in making the grade as a flight mechanic, Waters still dreamt of being a fighter pilot.

In an interview with Robert Hall at the Australian War Memorial Museum in 1991, Waters admitted that because of his limited education, he had no choice but to join the RAAF’s ground crew as aircrew standards were so much higher. “But I educated myself when I joined up in ground staff,” he said. “I became a flight mechanic and I studied all the time. Lots of times when the other fellows were out on leave, I’d be over at the tech library studying up, swotting up. And they finally asked for remusters to aircrew and I was able to get into aircrew then.”

Len was one of 375 flight training candidates, each of whom considered themselves to be worthy of selection as pilots. Only 48 were actually picked and although not overly confident, Waters graduated in the top five to earn the distinction of becoming Australia’s first aboriginal fighter pilot. At last he would fulfil his lifelong dream and get the opportunity to fly.

Before being thrust into the Pacific war theatre, Waters almost didn’t make it due to a hair-raising training incident over Mildura. Climbing to 20,000 feet with fellow trainee Joe Smith, Waters found himself in an inverted spin. Trying to pull out with conventional manoeuvres, Waters’ situation became desperate as the Kittyhawk failed to respond and the spin became tighter.

Thinking his time was up and there was no way out, Waters desperately tried to pump the throttle and stick together. “... and she flicked over,” Waters recalled. “And I looked at the altimeter and I saw as I thought, 12,000 (feet). I said ‘oh well, thats not too bad, didn’t lose that much’. I looked again and it was 1,200! And I ... then I started to shake, so I just side-slipped like ... I looked over to the left wing and spotted the airfield there so I just slipped down.“

”And apparently they were all watching me, and I landed ... I couldn’t sign the logbook when I got out, I was shaking that much. And Joe followed me in, he said ‘where the hell did you get that bloody manoeuvre?’ He was a real comedian this Joe Smith (laughs). I tell you what though, I never want to go through that again.”

Posted to No.78 Squadron, Waters served first at Noemfoor then Balikpapan, flying many ground attack sorties against the Japanese. He was allocated a Kittyhawk already dubbed ‘Black Magic’, which prompted him to comment: “was that fate or what?! What an omen – and I’m not a believer.”

In only his second mission, a dawn attack against Japanese forces at Serong, Waters watched in horror as his tent-mate Stan Hattersley died in the heat of battle. “Stan suffered engine trouble and his Kittyhawk ended up being riddled with ground fire,” recalled Waters. “Seeing him go like that knocked me about because I’d only been in the squadron a short while and it was only my second sortie. Stan was an only-son too, so his loss was a real tragedy.”

After almost a year of operational sorties to his credit, Waters, by then an experienced combat pilot, was occasionally given command of sorties that included commissioned officers. For a young man born on an aboriginal mission in country NSW, to be leading men of affluent backgrounds, was a remarkable achievement.

Dr Geoffrey Cutler, a former squadron buddy of Waters’ and younger brother of Australia’s distinguished Victoria Cross recipient, Sir Roden Cutler, maintained some contact with Len after the war and his praise of the man is immense. “Len Waters was a great man and a great pilot,” Cutler says. “Of all the pilots in No. 78 Squadron I preferred flying number two to Len because to me, he was the best.”

Waters’ respect for his former No. 2 was also apparent. “Geoff Cutler was a fantastic bloke,” he said. “Funny thing was, with me being the aboriginal pilot and all, he was a bloody sight blacker than I was!” Cutler also laughs at the memory. “Everyone browned up in the tropics because of the heat and it was quite difficult to differentiate, so I had no idea that Len Waters was an Aborigine until it was pointed out to me.”

Cutler remembers the biggest danger to No.78 Squadron on their strafing and ground attack missions was being shot down from ground fire and having to avoid capture. “The Japanese had a terrible reputation of executing POW’s at will,” he said. “Our fellows feared being caught by the enemy more than anything else.”

While based at Morotai, Waters almost became a casualty of ground fire as ‘Black Magic’ was hit by anti-aircraft fire, a 37mm bomb lodging itself behind him, unexploded.

“It was worse than a gun to the head,” Waters remembered. “I flew three to four hours back to the base and I tell you what, that was one of the best landings I ever made. I’ll guarantee I could have landed it on eggs [laughs] because I didn’t want to jar out what was there.”
 
Four weeks after leaving the military, Waters married Gladys Saunders in St George, Queensland and together they started a family. Unfortunately, Waters never flew again, returning to shearing to help care for his family.

“I didn’t want to go back to shearing, but I couldn’t find anything that paid better, so I had no choice,” he said.
“I’d been working as a mechanic and another fellow with a civilian ticket applied for my job. So they put me off and put him on. I tried to explain to the boss that I’d like for him (the new mechanic) to put together a dismantled Tiger Moth engine like we did in our RAAF flight mechanics test. They spread the engine on a bench, blindfolded you and you had to put it back together again.” But his request fell on deaf ears and Waters lost his job. 

Len Waters passed away on 20th August 1993, exactly 51 years to the day that he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, a young man full of hope and ambition. That he fulfilled his dream and experienced the thrill of flight is testimony to the man’s strength of character. But perhaps the romance of a young man simulating flight with a wooden propeller on an Aboriginal mission is lost when we realise that Len Waters still remains Australia’s one and only indigenous fighter pilot.

“My father was a unique man, a man ahead of his time,” said Len’s oldest daughter, Lenise. “Remarkably, a man experienced in leading men and with the intelligence and fortitude to perform a duty so dependent on mental intuition he then couldn’t find anything other than menial work to support his family. He had so much to offer and he was a firm believer that through looking, listening and observing, lessons could be taught.

“He was a man of vision whose achievements were never recognised when he was alive. It took his death for this country to give him the plaudits he deserved. The State funeral he received from the Queensland government was a case of too little, too late. And for me, that is sad.”