A bullet-holed reminder of Australian aeronautical engineering, industrial and combat achievement in World War II will greet RAAF veterans from all over Australia when they converge on Canberra next month.
Our beaut kite and, as one pilot, later killed in action, wrote to his family on the back of a photograph, did not have the glamour, bestowed by a devoted press and public, of the Mosquito, the speed of the Boston, the range of the Mitchell or the automatic pilot (a boon on long patrols) of the Hudson, its bombing allies in the air war against Japan. But it did have punch as well as manoeuvrability -- in RAAF front line squadrons, blasting enemy troops, airstrips and communications, often at tree-top height, in the jungle, kunai, swamps and mountains of New Guinea, and naval and merchant shipping, including barges full of soldiers and supplies, as well as flying reconnaissance missions, hunting submarines to protect convoys, patrolling stretches of Australia's coast and even downing Zero fighters.It was the Beaufort, the RAAF’s most used bomber, the "workhorse" with kick and names, often applied with cheeky nose art and mission tallies, like "Scotty's Homin' Pidgin", “Snifter”,“Thumper”, "Superman”, “ Old Faithful”, “ Jessie James” “Hallelujah Brothers We Are Saved”, “ Katey” “ Snow Goose” “ Salome” and “Der Boss”. It was also the first modem all metal combat aircraft built in Australia, from 1941 to 1944, when "Whispering Death", the famed strafing Beaufighter, succeeded it on Australian production lines.
Like the Beaufighter, the Beaufort really got down to it, attacking as low as 10 ft (3 m) above the water -- and even less -- before pulling up to 200 ft (61 m) to reduce the aircraft speed to 150 knots to drop the torpedo at the right water entry angle. One Beaufort, after strafing targets in the Jacquinot Bay area of New Britain returned with a palm frond in its port aileron. On another raid, the pilot hit a flying fox!
Comradeship forged in Beaufort squadrons in the defence of Australia and victory in the South-West Pacific will be renewed at the 10th biennial reunion of the RAAF Beaufort Squadrons Association, from 21-25 April 2001. It will include the dedication, in the Sculpture Garden of the Australian War Memorial on 24 April, of a plaque to all who served in Beaufort squadrons - Nos. 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 32 and 100 -- and support groups in World War II and to commemorate the 60th anniversary on 5 May of the first flight of the prototype Australian Beaufort.
Beaufort A9-557, recovered from New Guinea in a sorry state and being restored at the Memorial's Treloar Technology Centre at Mitchell, with other specialist work being done in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, will be a highlight of the reunion.
"It will mean a lot to our members to see our old mate again before we are all too old to travel", Mr Ivan Morris, honorary secretary of the Association's NSW branch, said. "As a strong supporter of RAAF Heritage preservation, our Association would like to see A9-557, when restored, placed on permanent display in the Memorial's new Anzac Hall. That would be a fitting tribute not only to the men who carried the fight to the enemy in Beauforts and maintained them under atrocious conditions but also to the men and women at home who built the aircraft." 19 different crews on more than 100 operations used A9-557, sometimes four or five a day, dropping 146,000 pounds of bombs. Mr. Morris said relatives of the four airmen who crewed the bomber on its last mission and later lost their lives in action had been invited to the dedication ceremony.
Several of the veterans attending the reunion are involved in an even more ambitious Beaufort restoration, in Brisbane. The objective: to get A9-141, wrecked on 14 January 1944 when it ground looped on take off from Tocumwal, NSW, into the air again -- to become the only Beaufort flying in the world. Its wartime radio call-sign, VH-KTW (Victor Hotel Kilo Tango Whisky), has been reserved for that climactic day -- and hopefully, many more.
Reconstruction of A9-141 is being supervised by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which will certify the completed aircraft to fly only if stringent standards are met. The project has been given the nod by the National Trust of Queensland, which has put it on the state's heritage register; its citation saying the Beaufort "holds a pivotal position in Australian aviation history". In 1941, It was the heaviest, most powerful and complex aircraft ever built in this country".
"The time it takes us to complete the rebuild depends entirely on how much financial support we can attract”, Mr John Lemcke, DFC, MID, chair of the A9-141 Reconstruction Group Inc. of the Queensland branch of the RAAF Beaufort Squadrons Association and branch president of the Association, said. "We need $250 000 or more to hope to finish it to flying status before too many more of us fall off the perch -- we cannot realistically hope to be too active for much longer when we are all now in the 80 years of age bracket!"
In response to an appeal, Beaufort Association members had donated $18,000 and one prospective major sponsor had added $10,000 to the group's tax deductable fund while considering further support. John Lemcke is no stranger to A9-141. Fifty eight years ago -- on 30 April 1943 -- Flying Officer (later Flight Lieutenant) Lemcke was flying that very aircraft on a daylight patrol over the Coral Sea in support of the Australian and American campaign to drive the Japanese from New Guinea.
Awarded the DFC in 1944 for "exceptional valour, courage and devotion to duty in active operations against the enemy", Flying Officer Lemcke, as captain of a Beaufort from November 1942 to December 1943, "completed 784 hours of anti-submarine and reconnaissance patrols", displaying “outstanding initiative, resourcefulness and a high degree of skill under many trying, conditions, such as restricted visibility, low ceilings and tropical conditions ... within easy range of enemy aircraft". He subsequently notched up another 1000 hours on Beauforts.
Brisbane-based Ralph Cusack, 53, who acquired A9-141 in a dilapidated state in 1984 and was later joined by other restoration enthusiasts, said: " We are on track to have the Beaufort back in the air in three to five years". He expects the wing centre section, including a spar recovered from Beaufort wrecks on Goodenough Island off Papua New Guinea to be rebuilt by June and although the stren frame , tailplane, rudder and other parts had been completed and "all the hydraulics work " done, there was still much to do on the fuselage sections, cockpit and wings. Two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines, each costing $US 45,000 were still needed.
Skill aplenty is also being brought to the War Memorial's Beaufort project, which owes Its exsistance to the determination and dectective work of Mr. John White the Memorial's Senior Curator, Military Technology, who has made seven visits to Papua New Guinea and several to the US in search of Beaufort parts and other World War II relies, as well as undertaking extensive research in Australia over 10 years and more. He was assisted by initial research by Mr. Alan Storr, a navigator in Beauforts and Catalina flying boats in World War II and later a First Assistant Secretary in the Department of Defence.
A9-557, Mr. White said, would be a key item in the Memorial's World War II collection. The objective was to rebuild a complete aircraft, using most of the major parts of A9-557, for preservation for future generations.
The Beaufort Squadrons Association's Ivan Morris, who enlisted in the RAAF in August 1941 and graduated as a Pilot Officer Observer in May 1942, flew as a navigator/bombardier in Beauforts from July 1942 to December 1945. Mentioned in Despatches in May 1945, he was discharged as a Flight Lieutenant (Bombing) Leader in January 1946. His 638 flying hours in Nos. 7, 100, 32 and 8 squadrons (in order of posting) included 140 operational sorties, 78 training and 21 ferry flights.
"During this time, I came to have a healthy respect for the versatility and structural strength of the Australian built Beaufort" he said. "There were a few times when we had to abort flights because of mechanical problems but generally, under sometimes extreme weather conditions and very basic ground utilities, the Beaufort performed well. The service crews did a magnificent job in keeping the maintenance up to scratch, particularly in the mud and humidity of Milne Bay."
"Beauforts were expected to be proficient in every phase of air warfare short of fighter interception", West Australian Beaufort pilot and 71 Wing, RAAF, commander Group Captain V. E. (later Air Marshal and Chief of Air Staff) Sir Valston Hancock, a cousin of the late mining magnate Lang Hancock, wrote in his 1990 book, Challenge.
Seven hundred of the aircraft, UK-designed in 1937 as a twin-engine mid-wing reconnaissance/torpedo bomber evolved from the Blenheim, were built in Australia under licence from Bristol by the Beaufort Division of the Department of Aircraft Production, with the "pattern" aircraft from Britain flying for the first time in Australia on 5 May 1941 and the first Australian made Beaufort three months later.
The first 90 were originally intended for the Royal Air Force -- an intention thwarted by Japan's seizure of Malaya from December 1941, when RAAF Hudson bombers, striking back at the invasion force, sank the first Japanese merchant vessel, a troopship, to be sunk in the Pacific War, to the fall of Singapore in February 1942. After losing most of its pilots flying 1930s vintage Vickers Vildebeeste biplane torpedo bombers against the Japanese, the RAF's No. 100 Squadron was transferred, to become No. 100 Squadron, RAAF, the first RAAF squadron to receive Australian-built Beauforts.
Redesign, modification and manufacture of the Beaufort in Australia, with Britain fighting for its very existence against Nazi Germany in 1940 and 1941 and unable to send combat aircraft, engines and other strategic material, was a major aeronautical engineering achievement. Australian Beauforts were converted to take the bigger American 1,200 hp R1830 Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp 14-cylinder air-cooled radials in place of the Bristol Taurus engines used in RAF Beauforts (which also used Twin Wasp engines).
The large-scale mobilisation of industry and workers, more than a third of them female, to build Beauforts, involved 600 sub-contractors making 39 000-plus parts for each aircraft, with final assembly at two factories -- at Fishermen's Bend, Victoria, and Mascot, New South Wales. "One hundred different types of rivets had to be used in making each Beaufort" Mr. George Bailey, Objects Conservator at the Treloar Technology Centre, said. The project -- described by Beaufort Division Director Mr. J S (later Sir John) Storey as "one of Australia's greatest industrial achievements"---included manufacture of Twin Wasp engines under licence by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation at Lidcombe, NSW; individual pressed-metal parts (more than 13,500 for each aircraft) by ; propellers by De Havilland Aircraft Pty Ltd. and aircraft instruments such as magnetic compasses, altimeters, airspeed and rate-of-climb indicators, directional gyros, gyro-horizons, fuel contents indicators and gauges for pressure, suction and engines, by Amalgamated Wireless (A'asia) Ltd.
Major airframe components, such as front and rear fuselage, centre and main-plane sections, stem frame, tail-plane, elevators, fin and rudder, were built at State rail workshops at Chullora, NSW, Newport, Victoria, and Islington, South Australia and locally made armament included gun turrets, at Fairfield, Victoria, and bomb release and torpedo operating equipment.
At peak production in 1943, one Beaufort was rolling off the assembly line each day. All did not go well, however. Scores of accidents, particularly in 1942 and 1943, in training and operational flying, killing many aircrew, cast a shadow over the aircraft, with some harsh words being spoken at No. 1 Operational Training Unit in Victoria and other places, until the cause -- the failure of a tiny bolt in the elevator trim tab assembly -- was corrected. The elevator is the movable part of the tail-plane to change attitude.
One Beaufort tragedy was the crash off Western Australia of A9-346 captained by 26-year-old Wing Commander Charles Learmonth, DFC and Bar, commanding officer of No. 14 Squadron, during formation flying practice between the RAAF's Pearce base and Rottnest Island in January1944.
Before losing control, Learmonth, after whom the town of Learmonth in north Western Australia is named, asked the second aircraft in his flight of three to come close and inspect his tailplane as his aircraft had a severe flutter, making handling difficult.
The crew of the other Beaufort noticed Learmonth's starboard elevator trim tab was free and oscillating, causing the entire elevator to vibrate violently. In seconds, A9-346 went into a dive and hit the water at an angle of 60 degrees, killing Learmonth and his crew.
The accident would not have happened, authorities have pointed out, had instructions issued several weeks earlier been carried out -- to inspect the Beaufort's tail-plane before all flights to ensure the elevator was safe until modifications were made.
Learmonth flew his first operational sorties in New Guinea in 1942 -- his pet Boston "She's Apples" and in March 1943, despite repeated attacks by Zeros, led five Boston's of No. 22 Squadron in low level strikes against enemy shipping in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, described by General Douglas MacArthur as "the decisive aerial engagement of the war in the South West Pacific".
There were also problems keeping Beauforts flying. Worried about their 52 per cent un-serviceability rate in early 1943, Prime Minister Mr. John Curtin informed Minister for Air Mr. Arthur Drakeford that of 303 Beauforts delivered to the RAAF by 8 May 1943, 51 had been lost and only 121 of those remaining were fit for service. He wanted more aircraft to combat enemy submarines.
Most (520) Australian-built Beauforts were Mark VIII’s with an improved dorsal turret with twin 0.303in or 0.5in Browning machine guns, ASV (air-to-surface vessel) radar, increased fuel tankage, and bigger fin to improve stability, already proving itself on earlier Beauforts. The Mark VIII could deliver a variety of weapons; such as the pulverising American AM 66-2,0001b demolition bomb or a mix of smaller bombs, an American or British torpedo and mines. Maximum speed was 430 km/h service ceiling 7600m and maximum range more than 2000 km.
The War Memorial's Beaufort A9-557 was badly damaged when it crash landed at Tadji airstrip in northern New Guinea on 20 January 1945 after one of its bombs stubbornly refused to leave the aircraft as it flew over the target near Wewak in heavy flak After several anxious dives and other attempts to dislodge the bomb, the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Jack "Chook" Fowler, a bank clerk and accountancy student from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, making his 53rd bombing strike, brought the Beaufort back to Tadji, base of No. 100 Squadron, then part of the RAAF's No. 71 Beaufort Wing providing close support to the Australian 6th Division fighting to drive the Japanese from the Aitape and Wewak areas.
Landing much faster than usual, with flaps up in the non-braking position, to put as much space as possible between the aircraft and the bomb should it break loose, activate and explode, A9-557 tore along the steel-matted strip, then, to Fowler's dismay, the brakes, damaged by the anti-aircraft fire, failed.
Approaching the end of the runway at 80 km/h or more, Fowler swung the aircraft off the strip but could not avoid crashing into four army jeeps and the Air Transport and Movements building. The bomb, shaken free at last, fell into one of the jeeps but did not explode. Three Diggers in the jeeps, however, were injured, one fatally. None of A9-557's crew or an army air liaison officer with them was hurt.
Jack Fowler and his crew had made 34 bombing strikes in A9-557 -- more than any other crew who had taken it on operations.
But time was running out for the West Australian, with 1137 flying hours, 901 of them on Beauforts, to his credit.
On his 79th strike, on 13 March 1945, Fowler and his crew were killed when their Beaufort, A9-650, exploded as it released its bombs over Japanese positions at Maprik West. His other crew members were Flying Officer Geoff Waite, Mentioned in Despatches for his skill, courage and devotion to duty in Hudson bombers with Milne Bay-based No. 6 Squadron, manager of a family boatshed business at Mosman Park, Western. Australia; Flight Lieutenant Jack Shipman, a photographer, guitarist and salesman from Bexley, New South Wales and Flight Lieutenant Frank Smith, also a salesman, who, because he was short, attempted to stretch himself with ropes and pulleys at home to meet RAAF physical requirements, from Kempsey, NSW.
Three days later, another Beaufort, captained by Squadron Leader Phil Dey, an audit clerk, from North Sydney, NSW, blew up in similar circumstances over the target. Cause of the explosions, a subsequent inquiry found, was a faulty batch of 100 lb bomb fuses. Jack Fowler and his crew are all buried at the Australian War Cemetery at Lae, New Guinea.
Mr. Derek Fowler, of Cook, ACT, youngest of Jack's three brothers, honours Jack's memory as a volunteer Beaufort researcher at the War Memorial, where the names of Jack and his crew are recorded on the Roll of Honour. Derek, formerly a branch head in the Commonwealth Department of Education, director of training with the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration at Athens, Greece, and Commonwealth Co-ordinator of Good Neighbour Councils, also served in the RAAF in World War II.
"Shattered" when told he was colour blind after training for aircrew in the Air Cadets, he became a flight mechanic, "to get as close to aircraft as possible", and took part in a number of Beaufort test flights. Brothers Frank and Ralph also served -- Frank as an Observer (navigator) in the RAAF and Ralph, a surveyor in the Army, who was Mentioned in Despatches at EI Alamein.
At least 400 airmen, research reveals, died in Beauforts in operational, training and other flying in World War II, when RAAF casualties included 6 344 in Europe (1939-1945) and 4 956 in the South-West Pacific, in the shorter (thanks to the A-Bomb) war against Japan (December 1941 -August 1945). Operations claimed about half the Australian Beaufort casualties. In comparison, some 520 Australian servicemen died in Vietnam (1962-1972).
Derek Fowler said that, because of failure to effectively check nearly 540 aircraft that needed modification, further lives were lost.
RAAF personnel, he said, served in much worse conditions in the South‑West Pacific than in Europe in World War II. In addition to the very high death rates in both theatres, illness claimed the lives of 298 in the tropical disease ridden South‑West Pacific (and many more after the war), compared with 26 in Europe. Personnel injured in the South‑West Pacific totalled 1614 and in Europe, 947.
Australian-built Beauforts were in action from the very first day of the Pacific War (a photographic reconnaissance flight from Kota Bharu, in north-east Malaya, by an aircraft subsequently destroyed on the ground by Japanese bombs) to the last.
Beaufort strikes in the South-West Pacific -- in and around New Guinea and the islands -included torpedo attacks on enemy shipping at Milne Bay, at the eastern tip of New Guinea -- a destroyer was reportedly hit -- in the August-September 1942 fighting, when Australian defenders, supported by RAAF Beaufighter’s, Hudson’s and Kittyhawk fighters as well as Beauforts, inflicted the first defeat on the Japanese on land in the Pacific War.
Beauforts took part (with no hits by No. 100 Squadron's American Mk 13 naval torpedoes recorded -- "they didn't always run true", a squadron veteran recalled) in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943, when eight Lae, New Guinea-bound enemy transports and four escorting destroyers, spotted with four other ships by an American Liberator bomber north of New Britain and shadowed by RAAF Catalina’s, were sunk by RAAF Beaufighter’s-attacking at mast-head height with cannons and machine guns to knock out anti-aircraft gun crews -- and Boston’s, US Fifth Air Force Flying Fortress four-engine bombers at medium altitude and skip-bombing Mitchell’s and Boston’s. Lightning fighter escorts shot down 15 Zeros, with another five falling to Fortress gunners. Some 3000 Japanese soldiers and seamen died in the encounter.
Other Beaufort "ops" included the torpedoing and sinking of a destroyer off Buna, New Guinea, in November 1942 and a light cruiser 32 kilometres south of Gasmata Island, New Britain, in January 1943; the dive bombing and damaging of a German U-boat by a Beaufort patrolling from Milne Bay and the depth-charging and damaging of a large Japanese submarine which had sunk the Portmar, carrying petrol and ammunition, and torpedoed but not sent to the bottom the American LST.469 in an Allied convoy 95 kilometres southeast of Coffs Harbour in June 1943.
With other RAAF aircraft, Beauforts attacked the Gasmata Island airstrip to prevent Japanese fighters using it to disrupt the Huon Gulf campaign, when, in September 1943, American paratroops dropped into the Markharn Valley with Australian artillerymen, together with Australian infantry flown into a hastily restored landing ground and other Australian troops, captured the Japanese strongholds of Nadzab, Salamaua and Lae.
In one low level strike at Gasmata -- at "a suicidal height", one correspondent wrote -three of 10 Beauforts, escorted by eight Kittyhawk’s of No. 76 Squadron, were shot down and two others badly damaged by intense flak. One Beaufort crippled and in flames, captained by Flight Lieutenant Bob Woollacott, a building contractor from Whyalla, South Australia, continued its bombing run to score direct hits in the centre of the runway before crashing and exploding. Woollacott and his crew -- Flight Sergeants J A Sugg, a school teacher from Blackwood, South Australia, H J Williams, an electrical mechanic from Launceston, Tasmania and W T Pedler, a farmer and grazier from Koolunga, South Australia -- were all killed.
Beauforts, with Mitchell's of No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron, attacked targets in Timor in support of Australian commandos and other operations. And, with US carrier and other aircraft, Beauforts of Nos. 6, 8 and 100 Squadrons repeatedly hit naval and merchant shipping, port buildings, concentrations of supplies and equipment and nearby airfields at Rabaul, New Britain, Japan's heavily-defended main base in the South-West Pacific.
In November 1943, a torpedo from a Beaufort captained by Wing Commander Geoff Nicoll, commanding officer of No. 8 Squadron, hit a tanker in Simpson Harbour, Rabaul, but another Beaufort, piloted by Squadron Leader Owen Price, a flying instructor from Toowoomba, Queensland, went down in a barrage of anti-aircraft fire when flying, according to George Odgers in "Air War Against Japan 1943-1945" (Australian War Memorial, Canberra) "straight towards the middle of a line of cruisers".
Still more strikes included the dive bombing and crippling of a light cruiser at Cape St George, New Ireland, in October 1943 -- Flight Lieutenant S G Hales DFC, a bank clerk from Swanboume, Western Australia, put a bomb down its funnel after scoring another direct hit on a 2000 ton ship in a convoy in St George's Channel a few days earlier -- and co-operation with ships of the Royal Australian Navy in a heavy bombardment of enemy troop concentrations and defences in the Wide Bay area of New Britain ahead of advancing Australian ground forces in November 1944.
In New Guinea, Beauforts flew numerous sorties in support of the Australian Army tactical reconnaissance, bombing and strafing. And in increasing numbers from five which attacked a Japanese warship off Lae and around positions at Salamaua in June 1942 to 60 from five squadrons which pounded targets in the Wewak area with 1000lb and 2 0001b bombs in May 1945.
In the Aitape campaign, "Wings", official magazine of the RAAF, reported in 1945 the work of the Beauforts was held in particularly high regard by the Army". Information provided by Beaufort crews was of immense value.
The Beaufort "became a spotter for naval shoots, an air co-ordinator for Army, Navy and Air Force actions, a lead-in for bomber support strikes, a scout for gun positions, a general intelligence gatherer, a photographic reconnoitre, besides a bomber and strafe -- everything, in fact, that could be expected of aircraft of several different makes".
In addition, Beauforts took part in top-secret chemical warfare trials off the coast of Queensland from 1943 to 1945.
Although many fell to anti-aircraft fire, Beauforts, with their agility and skilled crews, at times got the better of fighters.
In December 1942, A9-38 of No. 100 Squadron, piloted by Sergeant Reg Green, a student from Lenswood, South Australia, shot down two Zeros, I Morris, Reg Green's navigator from March to June 1943, recalled. A third broke off the engagement. All four crew members were Mentioned in Despatches and Reg Green, who also attacked "a swarm of enemy fighters strafing merchant seamen from a sunken ship" in his Beaufort, was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal after being promoted in May 1943 to Flight Sergeant.
In July 1943, a Beaufort piloted by Flying Officer Bob Anderson, a farmer from Boneo, Victoria, was attacked by four Zeros after it discovered three enemy cruisers and five destroyers south of Cape St George. Fellow farmer, Sergeant L V McMahon, from Manangatang, Victoria, the turret gunner, hit one of the Zeros, forcing it to break away. Anderson, flying in and out of cloud for cover, fought the remaining three before getting away and landing on one wheel with 60 bullet holes in his petrol tanks, main-plane and engine nacelles.
In October 1943, A9-394, captained by Flying Officer Bill Barr, DFC, from Bullfinch, Western Australia, fought six fighters in a 37-minute battle over the Solomon Sea. Machine gun bursts from his aircraft despatched one of the fighters and appeared to send another falling out of control. He returned with his tail-plane and fuselage holed in 17 places. Surprisingly, given the manoeuvrability, fast climb, high ceiling and firepower of the Mitsubishi Zero (or Zeke), there is no record of any Australian Beaufort being shot down by an enemy fighter in daylight A9 lost on a bombing raid on Gasmata in May 1943, was assumed to have fallen to night fighters.
Australian Beauforts also destroyed a number of Japanese floatplanes. As well, Beauforts served as supply dropping, communications and, with enlarged cabins, light transport aircraft -- "Beaufreighter's". Besides lethal loads, they carried mail, newspapers and even cases of Bourbon whisky to boost morale. And, when it was all over, in 1946-47, several fought another foe -- the Rutherglen Bug in fruit crops in Victoria and locusts in Victoria and New South Wales. Spraying with DDT from converted Mark IX’s was rated a success.
On the A9-557 rebuild, the War Memorial's John White said that restoration of the wing centre section by the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society in Sydney was complete. The Society would now restore the nose and outer wing panels.
The project received a setback in 1999 when its main sheet metal worker, Mr. Phil Lloyd, was tragically killed in the crash of a Wirraway.
Mr. White said that A9-557's rear fuselage, incorporating the mid‑upper gun turret, had been cleaned and metal corrosion removed. Structural work such as restoring the tubular steel framework inside the fuselage, two firewalls and the bomb bay side panels, was under way. The stem frame had been rebuilt; a steel rudderpost had been obtained from Melbourne and a fin and rudder from New Guinea.
Internal fittings for the nose and cabin, such as seats and controls, were being rebuilt. A nose section obtained from Melbourne's Moorabbin Air Museum in return for an Australian designed and built Jindivik target drone would be used as a pattern for rebuilding A9-557's nose (refitted during the war from Beaufort A9-461). Remaking the Perspex for A9-557's nose was a challenge that was still being examined. The nose from Moorabbin would ultimately be rebuilt and used in AWM displays around the country.
Mr. White said that three-quarters of the engine nacelle structures were in hand. Work on the undercarriage units and wheel-hubs was complete but suitable tyres were still being sought. The many donations to the project included two engine mounts, bomb sights, a throttle quadrant, a tall wheel and spare tail wheel leg and a number of instruments and controls.
The overall cost of restoring A9-557 was likely to exceed $300 000, Mr. White said. Substantial funds had already been allocated by the Commonwealth and the War Memorial but more would need to be found. He expected the rebuild to take another three years.
The Treloar Technology Centre's George Bailey said that two Twin Wasp engines acquired for A9-557 were in very good condition and two Curtiss Electric three-bladed propellers had been located. Wing ribs flattened by decades in the jungle and "people walking over them" had been replaced and the tail-plane restored in Melbourne by Mr. Ashley Briggs and his team.
At the end of World War II, the RAAF was the. fourth biggest airborne in the world---after those of the US, Britain and the USSR. Total enlistments in the RAAF were 189,700 men and 27,200 women -- every one a volunteer.
After the war, Mrs. Alice Waite, whose husband Arthur was wounded with the First AIF at Gallipoli in 1915, wrote a poem in memory of her son, Geoffrey, Jack Fowler's navigator on the last flight of Beaufort A9-650. She had good reason to be proud of Geoffrey, a Church of England lay preacher and keen water polo player and singer before the war, who was Mentioned in Despatches for his RAAF service and the father of a nine-year old daughter when he died. |
