By Colin Hobson  

Born and raised in country nsw and destined to a life of labouring due to his basic education, colin hobson received the shock of his life when he was drafted into the raaf as a pilot during world war 2. To this day colin believes the authorities made a mistake because "labourers weren't meant to be pilots". But despite his doubts, colin made the most of the opportunity and flew beauforts in the pacific war for five years, a period in which he discovered mateship and respect for an aircraft that he believes contributed more than any other, to the saving of the nation. Taken from his book "bogey beauforts to city boy, memoirs of a wwii beaufort pilot" the following feature is the first of a series of exerpts to be published by aviator.

A NICE BLUE UNIFORM
With the war in Europe gaining momentum, Britain and Russia were having a rough time. I felt this could affect us all out here in Australia were these countries to go under. Japan was not yet committed. My reasons for considering joining the Air Force however, were not entirely patriotic. With the benefit of some commercial experience in photography behind me, I felt that an application for a good safe non-combatant job as a squadron photographer would be looked on with some favour and hopefully, when the war would end, I could walk out of the Air Force with some credentials as a professionally trained photographer. So, I rode my motorbike to the recruiting train and put my name down.

Working on the land for eleven years meant I was in good physical condition. The experience of getting out into the world and fighting my own battles was a contributing factor in overcoming the problems that had put paid to my chance of further education. I assumed the Air Force would be more interested in my capabilities as a photographer than my academic ones. It is interesting to recall that, in the eye test, not a word was said about my lazy left eye
and I passed through all the physical tests with no problems.

At this time, the Empire Air Training Scheme was well under way. The big bombers were starting to come off the production lines in Britain in larger numbers. However, there was an acute shortage of crews to fly them. The recruiting officer suggested I apply for air crew and in a moment of madness, knowing the destination of air crew was almost certainly Britain to fly heavy bombers, I agreed. I admitted I didn’t have an education beyond primary school but the recruiter pointed out this was not required of an air gunner, leaving me in no doubt as to where I would finish up in the Air Force.

Inducted into the Air Force, I spent the first twelve weeks with the other recruits on a crash course called ITS (Initial Training Course). This meant working eleven days straight - six hours of lectures, plus one hour on the parade ground, being hounded by a tough drill NCO trying to make soldiers of us, and an hourʹs physical training. This was
considered important, but nearly killed some of the city boys. It was no problem for me.

The course was held in Sydney and every eleven days, we went on leave for two days. This enabled me to go home to the farm and show off my brand new blue serge uniform, complete with a piece of material in the forage cap signifying I was trainee air crew. We had suddenly become very important in the home district, our status opening all sorts of doors that had previously been inaccessible to common farm labourers. Places like business clubs, the local bowling club, etc welcomed us wholeheartedly.

In these days I had little money to spend on the opposite sex; add to this the fact that I was painfully shy when in the presence of girls and it will come as no surprise that the first time I had taken a girl to the pictures was when I was in the Air Force. But with a few shillings in my pocket, a nice blue uniform and eventually a set of silver pilot’s wings, meeting girls was no longer a problem! Most (but not all) of my fellow students at that time were young, fancy free (at least while on leave) and out in the world for the first time. At this time I was a dedicated “one schooner “ man and I figured rightly or wrongly that I was unlikely to meet a girl in a hotel with whom I might want to develop a serious relationship.

One of the students in the ‘not all’ part of the above was a dedicated Christian named Malcolm who was married with a baby son. I had shared twelve months service in various training units with him early in our careers and I regarded him as one of my mates.

Whilst on leave in Adelaide during our S.F.T.S. course, Malcolm would head off to see his Christian friends, leaving me to fend for myself. Fortunately, Adelaide, like quite a few towns close to service establishments, provided hostels (and sometimes free meals) run by volunteers. And for me this provided the alternative to accompanying my other ‘mates’ on their quest to find some ‘nice’ girls and to consume large quantities of alcoholic drinks, the latter which to me made little sense.

And it was here I took my first girl out (to an aeroplane picture in fact!). I had met this girl at a dance and although it was only a brief encounter, in retrospect it could have developed into something more serious. She, like myself, was working in a big city as many people did from necessity during the war and we were two lonely young people. But when I was posted to another unit many miles away with training still to complete, by mutual consent we decided
to call it a day.

If there happened to be a church in the mostly country towns where we were based and Mal was lucky enough to score a leave pass on Sunday night he would head off to church. Eventually, I got into the habit of going with him if I could get a pass as well. I must confess that while my mate’s reason was strictly religious, I had more interest in the supper provided after the service and the greater likelihood of finding ‘nice’ girls here than around the hotels. In a church at Bairnsdale there was an added attraction of a beautiful, old pipe organ, which for me (with a bias for ‘better’ music) was a bonus.

During the training period I had met quite a few ‘nice girls’ and each appeared to be looking to develop the relationship into something more permanent. I saw quite a bit of a country girl who lived at home on her parents’ dairy farm, located next door to the big Air Force base where I served as a staff pilot training Beaufort crews. Several times I would dodge the base guards and crawl through a fence to help on the farm, scoring quite a few home cooked meals along the way. This girl also was more than a little interested in expanding her horizons through a serious commitment. When I was posted to an operational squadron, she would have been happy to tie the knot, but I backed off. I was beginning to recognise the problems that I would have to face on discharge from the Air Force,
assuming I would be fortunate enough to survive. These problems included the future challenge of establishing a home and facing up to the responsibilities of family life on the wage of a farm labourer.

During the ITS course, I was taught a variety of strange subjects, such as law and administration, air navigation, wireless procedure and others. In Morse Code, everyone had to qualify at twelve words per minute. All this time, we were given constant tests and at the end, a final exam. I presume this was to compile a dossier to be put before a selection committee, whose next step was to assess each of us for training in one of the four categories: pilots (everyoneʹs ambition), navigators, wireless air gunners and gunners.

I went before the committee expecting to be classified as a gunner-in-training. Due to my early learning difficulties I believed I had little academic ability so I received the shock of my life when I had been classified as a pilot.
Labourers did not become pilots - or so I thought. Believing someone had made a mistake, I decided not to query it, thinking it would all sort itself out eventually. Apparently it never did. I flew as an Air Force pilot for nearly five years.

THE BEAUFORT EXPERIENCE
With the threat to the free world posed by the outbreak of World War II, came the realisation that air power was going to be a major factor in winning this war. The mobilisation of resources to mass produce military aeroplanes created the problem of finding crews to fly them. The Empire Air Training Scheme was established whereby uninterrupted
training could be carried out in Commonwealth countries which were not directly affected by the war.

One aim of this scheme was to produce, in the short time of twelve to eighteen months, pilots who could join an operational squadron and fly an aeroplane as a fighting machine.
Unfortunately, this was a big ask. British Air Force records show that the many hazards of learning to fly a military aircraft resulted in nearly as many casualties in the training units as there were in the operational squadrons.

Civilian aircraft of that era (e.g. the famous DC3) were flown by a pilot (captain) and a co-pilot with assistance from an automatic pilot. The co-pilot had to spend anything up to ten years or more in this capacity before graduating to Captain. Civilian planes mostly flew regular scheduled routes with wireless assistance and (albeit primitive) blind landing facilities.

By contrast, all British military aeroplanes, including the big four-engined bombers, were flown by one pilot and in most cases without the assistance of an automatic pilot. In addition, military aircraft were mostly required to fly over unfamiliar territory finding specific targets without the help of radio beacons. They frequently returned to base with very little fuel left after a long flight to find their base closed in by bad weather or fog and had to cope with
landing the aeroplane without the availability of blind landing assistance.

This policy of rushing pilots through training in the time allowed did produce pilots to man the operational squadrons, but was also a policy that was the cause of many young men not surviving the war even though they never made it into the operational squadrons.

One war historian of some note was prompted to say that the nine squadrons of Beauforts operating during World War II contributed more to the war effort than any other aircraft operated by the RAAF in the Pacific theatre. Beauforts were amongst the first aircraft to meet the enemy in the New Guinea area, and the writer of this story flew one of the last bombing operations in Dutch New Guinea about a week before the war ended.

In the early days of the war when for various reasons the Beauforts earned a fearsome reputation, it was said of those who flew them “one either loved them or hated them”. As a lucky survivor of training and the operational flying of Beauforts, I can remember them as a fine aircraft and regard it as a privilege to have had the opportunity to fly them. Unfortunately, Beauforts were a difficult aeroplane to learn to fly and this, together with the additional
hazard of early mechanical problems, earned them such a bad reputation that serious consideration was given to withdrawing them from service and cancelling the whole Beaufort program.

“Killer Beauforts”, “Flying Coffins”, “Bogey Beauforts”, a “Sheer Bastard of an Aircraft” were just some of the nasty things said about the Australian-built Bristol Beaufort Torpedo/General Reconnaissance Bomber, to give them their official classification, which were operated by the RAAF in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. In spite of the fearsome reputation they were to earn during the desperate early days of the war, it was imperative that training should proceed regardless of the heavy losses being sustained. Much of the truth about the early problems was kept quiet at the time for obvious reasons, and this was only revealed many years after the end of the war.
It was only in 1993 that Government figures were obtained. During the worst period of sixteen months between July 1942 and October 1943, the losses quoted were one hundred and forty Beauforts (mostly fatal).

In spite of their reputation and their abnormally high casualty rate, it is a matter of record that their overall contribution to the war in the Pacific was of a high order and they have never been given the credit they deserved. The Beaufort was amongst the first aircraft to meet the enemy in New Guinea (before the Americans arrived in numbers sufficient to make any worthwhile effort to halt the Japanese advance). Of the nine squadrons to be formed during the war, six were still in operational service when the war finished. Some people, who are qualified to judge such matters, claim the Beaufort squadrons contributed more to the Pacific theatre than any other Australian aircraft.

THE BRISTOL BEAUFORT
The story of the Bristol Beaufort in the service of the RAAF is as much a story of the development of an Australian manufacturing industry as of service in wartime. As Australia entered the 1940s it was involved in a conflict with Germany and would soon have its own doorstep threatened by Japan’s expansion in the Pacific. At that time, not only was the RAAF in a weak state, but the local aircraft industry was small, lacking in numbers and producing aircraft which were not true weapons of war.

The decision to manufacture the Bristol Beaufort in Australia resulted in the establishment of the Beaufort Division of the Department of Aircraft Production. Australia built up an industry manufacturing reasonably sophisticated aircraft virtually from nothing. The Beaufort program introduced workers to the skills of aircraft production and hundreds of companies to the disciplines and techniques which have always seen what we now call the aerospace
industry at the forefront of technology.

The Department of Aircraft Production built 700 General Reconnaissance/Torpedo Bombers and followed this with 365 Beaufighter strike aircraft, the latter supplemented by 218 examples imported from Britain. Both types provided the RAAF with aircraft which gave invaluable service in the Pacific war against Japan. In fact, one noted aviation historian describes the Beaufort’s part in the conflict as “probably of greater importance than any other single type”.

For Australia and the RAAF, Bristol’s humble Beaufort was an extremely important aircraft not just because it formed the backbone of Australia’s light strike forces for the bulk of the war against Japan, but also due to the construction of 700 examples by the Government-owned Department of Aircraft Production. This was a major effort which went a long way to establishing the basis of a viable local manufacturing industry.

At the time of the maiden flight of the first Australian-built Beaufort in August 1941, types in series production in Australia were much simpler aircraft and included the Wirraway general purpose trainer, the Wacket and Tiger Moth trainers. All three were single engined aircraft and by comparison the Beaufort represented high technology and a major challenge to Australia’s fledgling industry.

In service with the RAAF, the Beaufort was something of an unsung hero suffering in public recognition and reputation when compared to the Beaufighter and Mosquito, just as the Curtiss P40 Kittyhawk played second fiddle to the Supermarine Spitfire as the RAAF’s glamour fighter. Despite this, the fact remains that just as the Kittyhawk was the workhorse of Australian fighter squadrons, the Beaufort formed the basis of its light strike force and anti-shipping operations throughout the Pacific war, serving with no fewer than nine operational squadrons and numerous communication units.

With the maiden flight of the first Australian-built Beaufort in 1941 came the problem of providing crews to fly them. Prior to and early in World War II, flying instructors were trained at the Central Flying School at Point Cook, while operational air crews and instructors for advanced training squadrons and Service Flying Training Schools completed their training in an operational squadron. The RAAF considered that owing to inadequate facilities in individual squadrons the aircrews did not receive a good grounding in operational training.

In the United Kingdom, Canada and the Middle East, special operational training units were established to conduct advanced training for pilots, observers and wireless air gunners prior to their posting to operational squadrons. In Australia there had been no facilities to carry out operational training to man the home defence squadrons or advanced training of staff pilots for the Empire Air Training Schools. This new unit was to be known as Number One
Operational Training Unit and it would commence training immediately at a temporary location.

The then Air Minister advised the War Cabinet that a site four miles east of Sale in Victoria had been selected as a suitable permanent location for the Operational Training Unit. This was approved and the Air Board considered withdrawing a sufficient number of Wirraways, Hudsons and towing aircraft from the service squadrons and Empire Air Training Schools to allow training to start. A sense of urgency was introduced on 7th December 1941 with Japan’s
surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

In March 1942 the Air Minister approved the purchase of about 1200 acres of land with plans to construct a Unit to operate 60 military type aircraft with a provisional establishment totalling about 1100 personnel. To enable construction to start immediately, possession of the land was taken under national security regulations.

When the War Cabinet approved the site for Number One Operational Training Unit in January 1942, the RAAF was planning to operate Hudsons from an all-weather runway 1,300 yards long. During 1942 Number One Operational Training Unit, after operating briefly from Nhill in Victoria, moved to Bairnsdale. The Officer commanding Number One Operational Training Unit, after inspecting the new site at Sale, indicated certain requirements, the chief of which was that provision should be made for the operation of 150 medium bomber Hudson and Beaufort aircraft plus a supporting squadron of Airspeed Oxfords and Fairey Battle towing aircraft operated by staff pilots. Consequently two extra runways were included in the plans and construction by the Civil Construction Corps began in earnest on 20th April 1942.

In a radical departure from the practice of building army type huts it was decided, as a matter of national security, to build the base to resemble a village with all the huts looking like houses although there were to be no rooms inside. No doubt this was good thinking given the situation at the time, but the author, having flown over the site several times during the final stages of construction, had to wonder whether the enemy would be fooled by a village with
three runways in the middle.

At this time about 1,700 servicemen and women were manning the Operational Training Unit at Bairnsdale and in January 1942 the establishment figure of Number One Operational Training Unit had been revised and the RAAF planned to house more than 2,300 personnel.

On 18th March, before the main party arrived, the base experienced a Beaufort incident which was the forerunner of such incidents (many fatal) at the new base, and one which had plagued the Beauforts since they first started operating at Nhill. Beaufort A9-17, flown by a Flight Lieutenant Instructor and pupil pilot were in the circuit area at an altitude of 1,500 feet when an engine caught fire. The pupil pilot had to be physically restrained while the Instructor was able to make a safe landing. Some pupil pilots watching the incident with a grapevine knowledge of previous such incidents were heard to say “Does this happen every time?”