Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I would very much like to make a statement on the 70th anniversary of the operations of Bomber Command. I grew up with a picture on the wall of seven young men in full battledress ready to step into the huge Lancaster towering just behind them, identified as PB853, or 'P for Peter'. There were a line of bombs painted on the side of the plane, representing the number of missions the crew had successfully survived.

The photograph was taken in February 1945, at RAF Station Hemswell, and they were a Commonwealth crew of 150 Squadron, already veterans on that day of more than 20 missions. Even the oldest was barely more than 20. They were a Commonwealth crew, closer than brothers, with six Australians trained back home or in Canada and a ring-in, English flight engineer John Davis. At that time Australia did not train flight engineers to be sent to be part of the deadly and highly effective Bomber Command of World War II.

The United Kingdom has come so very late to recognising the sacrifices and contributions of the WWII Bomber Command. It took until 2012 to see a dedicated memorial unveiled in London. Most of the surviving veterans of Bomber Command are now in their late 80s or 90s. Most could not travel to London to honour and remember their brother aircrew who died and the youth that they sacrificed when they were sent night after night to bomb strategic enemy targets to hasten the end of the war. By the end of World War II, Bomber Command had suffered the biggest proportion of casualties of any service in the campaign against Germany and Italy. Of the 125,000 aircrew 55,000 were killed on operations—3,500 of these were young Australians; the flower of their generation.

Amongst those 125,000 who flew for Bomber Command were the six young Australians and their adopted brother, John Davis, captured on film just as they were about to climb into their Lancaster, P for Peter. It was February 1945. A few weeks later, on 24 March 1945, on their 29th mission, they were shot down near Dortmund, Germany. They had been dropping bombs on the oil refineries at Harperweg when the intense anti-aircraft flak disabled their plane.

This young Commonwealth crew, like every other, knew their chance of surviving a bombing raid was about 50 per cent. As the planes limped back home from every mission, there were always missing mates who had been trapped in burning planes or had crashed on land or sea. Some did parachute to safety, however, living to fight another day or to remain in German Prisoner of War camps supposedly safe to the end of the war.

That crew in the photo on the wall in my home were shot down on the night of 24 March 1945. That loss was especially poignant, and it is one of the great tragedies of the war—one, of course, of many tragedies. While the Lancaster was fatally crippled by the flak, only 20-year-old Flight Sergeant James Noel Griffin, of South Brisbane, went down with the plane. He had helped to keep the crippled Lancaster in the air long enough for the rest of the crew to bail out. His body was recovered from the wreckage. The rest of the crew bailed out safely. They were the Englishman, John Clement Davis, the flight engineer; the oldest of the crew, 24-year-old Robert Lockyer Masters, the wireless operator, from Tumut, New South Wales; 20-year-old Kevin Anthony Kee, the navigator, from West Brunswick, Victoria, and a descendant of a Bendigo goldfield Chinese family; and 23-year-old Philip Henry Morris, the pilot, from Maroubra. These four landed safely and were subsequently rounded up by the Germans and taken to a POW camp near Bochum where, according to the conventions of war, they should have been safe. The end of the war was only months away.

The other two crew members who parachuted to safety were my father, 20-year-old Harvey Bawden, the mid-upper gunner, from Pyramid Hill, Victoria, and 20-year-old James Henry, or Jim, Gillies, the bomb aimer, of Eastwood, New South Wales. Miraculously, these two were not with the others when those four were marched off to the POW camp at Bochum. My father had been badly injured, with a broken femur, and so he was saved from a civilian mob by the German Home Guard equivalent, who carried him off to a police station. Jim Gillies had concussion and landed a distance away from the other four, who had been captured by the military, so he was taken to a different place.

The next day, at the POW camp, a furious mob demanded that the Bomber Command crew—the four who had just been taken prisoner—be released into their hands. The guards complied, and John, Robert, Kevin and Phil were then attacked and brutally murdered. They were then buried by the mob in their home gardens.

With the end of the war just a short time later, and the American Allies sweeping through the area, some of the still shocked locals led them to the buried members of the crew. A war crimes tribunal subsequently investigated this crime, committed outside the POW camp at Bochum. The guilty were sentenced to death by hanging, and one to 20 years jail. There were also several suicides.

So just two of those seven—my father, Harvey Bawden, and Jim Gillies—miraculously survived the war. They of course live with the legacy of what happened. They remain as close as brothers and are committed to keeping alive the memories of their crew. On behalf of those two, I visited the graves of the others and paid my respects. They are re-buried at Reichswald forest, a beautiful place in a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Germany, very close to the Netherlands border. My father and Jim stay in touch with the next of kin but sadly, because all of the boys were so young, there are no direct descendants to carry on the knowledge and understanding of what they sacrificed so long ago.

There have now been several books written about this tragic episode. My father and Jim were reluctant to talk in detail about what happened. We encouraged them to say it like it was, so that younger Australians of today realise that there were crews in their twenties, many had enlisted at the age of 18, who made us so proud, and whose courage delivered a much faster end to the war. Sadly, when the conventions of war fail, some who could have survived lose their lives. In this particular case civilian lives were also lost, and that was another great tragedy of the war.

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

( ):  I thank the member for Murray for her fine contribution. I am sure that the men of whom she spoke would feel very honoured by the way she presented their story and put it on the record here in the parliament today.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is 9.25 pm. The place is London. Seven nervous men sit in various positions in a Lancaster bomber, waiting for take-off. It is dark and the flames from the exhaust stubs of the four Merlin engines can be seen flashing in time with the syncopated rhythm of the engines. It will be a terrifying experience, flying essentially alone, swallowed by the darkness, relying on astronavigation in their primitive Gee radio navigation systems to find their target. It is freezing cold in the night sky of Germany, a great deal below zero. The seven will be over Germany for hours, knowing that at any second a Luftwaffe night fighter could riddle the Lancaster with cannon and machine-gun fire: death with no notice. Further, there is the ever-present danger of being caught by searchlights and shot down by flak. If they were shot down, only 15 per cent of the men would get out of the aircraft, on average. The Lancaster had a notoriously difficult egress. This terrifying ordeal was not a one-off event. It happened night after night, weather permitting, until the crew was either shot down or completed their 30-mission tour of duty. They had, roughly, only a one in two chance of survival.

What would drive a man to slap self-preserving logic in the face? Remember, these heroes were not old. They were young men, with everything ahead of them. But they were willing to put everything on the line to defend the gift of freedom. It was irrational when so many of their mates were being blown to pieces. Bravery is irrationality in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons.

Today, as the voices of that generation fade from our world, their actions will continue to boom through the pages of history forever. This notion of selflessness, mateship and duty is what the men of Bomber Command were all about. Duty is what every single member of our armed services is about. So let us honour the heroism of 70 years ago by honouring the heroism of our forces today.

The legacy of 70 years ago is that we in the international community and the West resolved on the creed 'never again'. But what we are doing is telling our soldiers, 'Never again will you be satisfied that you have everything you need to do your job.' The boys and girls in Afghanistan today, and in our other forces overseas, just want to do their job. That is it—nothing more. They want to have all the equipment necessary to complete that job, but the government is cutting the defence budget. By cutting the budget, the government is saying, 'Never again will our country value or hold you in the highest esteem.'

I would like to say to every member of Bomber Command: let not the stains of time lessen our debt to you. So many today are preoccupied with sovereign debt and private debt, short-term debt and long-term debt, but the debt we owe you is a debt you won through death. Today is a down payment on that debt of honour—our simple and heartfelt gratitude for your service and sacrifice. You of Bomber Command paid a heavy price for our freedom: 10,000 Australian mates, brothers and sons went to our British cousins' aid. While not deeming themselves august and inspirational—though they were—they would have been more comfortable to be known simply as good Aussie blokes, ordinary men doing extraordinary things, because they knew, as we should today, that freedom is never free. One such hero is Brian Walley. Mr Walley lived at the RAAFA estate in my constituency of Tangney in Perth. He ditched in the water twice, once in a training mission when he had an engine failure and once over the North Sea after sustaining battle damage over Germany. He was in the water—and this was in winter—for days. He was the only survivor, despite four of them having survived the initial ditching—the other three died of exposure. Ever with deliberate and careful discrimination and unflinching zeal, Mr Walley and his mates at Bomber Command, undaunted by odds, unwavered by the constant challenge, brought a terrible justice to the abodes of the guilty. I have met this silent hero. The song passed to me from that time goes like this and the boys of Bomber Command would ditty: 'Let us pray for a solution, pray for resolution, pray for absolution, pray for retribution.'

I think of a tail gunner I know who was in a Lancaster when he was shot down over occupied Europe. His crewmates were captured and became POWs and so receive benefits. This tail gunner evaded capture and fought with the Dutch Resistance for the remainder of the war, so no benefits for him. How stupid are bureaucracies at times. When I walk around that RAAFA Heritage Museum in Tangney I look to the pristine Lancaster bomber that lives there. I am extremely concerned by the knowledge that the government do not have any real resolution, and certainly no solution, to the present-day security needs of our country. Never can they or we be certain of soundness of sleep when we know of the real and growing tensions in the South China Sea and the ever-present reality of modern wars against a faceless and stateless enemy.

The government's response is wrong. Is it right that we mark the memory of Bomber Command by cutting defence spending? Dr Mark Thomson from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute invokes an iconic moment from the 1930s, the Munich peace marches, for the last time spending was at this level. The fall as a proportion of GDP, the measure that matters, is far more serious than the government has admitted. In 2012-13, defence spending will fall to below 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product. This has short-changed defence by $4 billion. Alan Dupont from the University of New South Wales Institute for International Security and Development warns the best time to invade Australia will be between 2028 and 2030, because of delays in replacing Collins submarines. The men of Bomber Command risked their lives, many paying the ultimate price to ensure our freedom. We dishonour them in not maintaining the constant vigilance and paying for said vigilance to ensure the freedom that they fought and died for is a continuing and enduring one, one that we will pay for at the very least with defence spending.

As much as I question the JSF decision, is it right to delay the delivery of 12 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and scrap plans to equip the Army with new self-propelled artillery in order to make 'an important contribution to the government's fiscal objectives', as the Prime Minister stated on 3 May? On the same day the Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith, announced $200 million for another study, a study that will decide if submarines should be bought from other countries or designed from scratch in Australia. Is it right that it is easier to get more support staff in the Department of Defence than supporting fire in the field? Is it right that delays to delivery of vital new technology and capability cost lives? It is a slap in the face for defence at a time when Australia's maritime security—as we know with the boat people scenario and with oil and gas, coal and minerals exports—is utterly dependent upon maritime security.

In the final analysis we stand and salute the men of Bomber Command. Your gallantry is legendary. Tears are ever there for the 3,486 men who did not come home and for the 650 men who died in training. For them it was the highest cost in a time of the highest stakes. It is wrong that it has taken us so long to fully recognise the efforts of Bomber Command. To those who did everything for us, our grandparents and parents, we can do more for them. Never has so much been owed by so many to so few, though few remain. Their legend will endure and this I, as an MP, will ensure for evermore.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were in many ways the forgotten heroes of World War II, perhaps due to high civilian casualties from bombing campaigns against the German mainland to disrupt industrial weapons production and German air force operations. However, in the words of the great British Prime Minister Winston Churchill:

The fighters are our salvation but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.

That they did.

Ten thousand Australians served in Bomber Command during World War II. Up to 3,500 were killed in action and 650 were killed in training accidents in Britain. Of the 125,000 total aircrew serving in Bomber Command, a total of around 55,000 made the supreme sacrifice on operations. More Australians were killed in the Bomber Command than any other service during World War II. It was not until five years ago that Australia commemorated Bomber Command, and on 28 June 2012 Queen Elizabeth II fittingly unveiled a monument in London's Green Park. The thousands of men killed were finally recognised and it was the first chance in almost 70 years for surviving crew to recognise their fallen friends formally. At the ceremony Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Stephen Dalton, said Bomber Command's 'service and raw courage' had been acknowledged, and how appropriate that was. Some 6,000 veterans and families of the deceased from Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand watched a Lancaster bomber drop thousands of poppies in a fly-past. It was a momentous and memorable moment for those who attended the ceremony.

Unfortunately, initially the government was only going to fund fully eight veterans to attend this unveiling of the long-awaited Bomber Command memorial and only part-fund a further 40 ex-pilots, officers or tail gunners. Thankfully, the government saw the good sense to send more Australians. There are not that many of them left, but those who went certainly came back with great memories and great tales to tell. They felt as though their service, their honour and the sacrifice of their mates had been duly recognised.

Due to ill health, one of Riverina's bravest, former air gunner in the 186th RAF Squadron Jim Mallinson from Griffith, was unable to attend the June ceremony but he has many fond memories of the squadron he fought with in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Jim Mallinson was an air gunner in the 186th RAF Squadron in 1944, surviving a remarkable 39 missions. It is people such as Jim who need to be praised forevermore for the tasks he and his colleagues performed, which helped enormously to bring about victory in Europe.

Professor Hank Nelson, a highly respected Pacific historian who wrote Chased by the sun: courageous Australians in Bomber Command in World War II, published by ABC Books in 2002, also penned a paper called 'From Wagga to Waddington: Australians in Bomber Command'. This paper recounts the tale of two Riverina men, Alfred Doubleday from Yanco and William Brill from Ganmain, and their journey from kids on the farm to fighter pilots in World War II. Brill was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in May 1942 for attacking a target after his plane had been badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. After acting as an instructor with the RAF, he returned to the bombing campaign in January 1944 as a flight commander with No. 463 Squadron RAAF, operating Avro Lancaster heavy bombers. Brill's leadership and determination to complete his missions despite damage to his aircraft—on one occasion inflicted by another Lancaster's bombs from above—earned him the Distinguished Service Order. Brill's Bar to his DFC was for his skill in evading three German night fighters, not an easy feat, and he was also the recipient of a Bar to his DSO. Promoted to wing commander in May 1944, he took command of No. 467 Squadron RAAF after the death in combat of its then leader, Group Captain John Balmer. Returning to Australia, he remained in uniform after the war and continued to serve the Air Force, and therefore the nation, until his death of a heart attack at the age of just 48 whilst in the Department of Air in Canberra in 1964.

Brill, Doubleday and Mallinson, all men of extraordinary courage whose daring, derring-do, pluck and valour—helped in the difference between winning and losing the worst global conflict mankind has endured. The sacrifices of Bomber Command and the bravery shown by all in this fearless flighting force ensured that good triumphed over evil.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe, said in September 1939, before the commencement of the Second World War:

No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Goering. You may call me Meyer.

Obviously, Bomber Command, and the role it played in the Second World War, was a slap in the face of that Nazi braggadocio who symbolised that evil regime. The role Bomber Command played is being remembered on the 70th anniversary by the great Australian veterans who flew in that force. I remember standing in Berlin with an Australian parliamentary delegation at the Commonwealth war graves and putting a red rose on the grave of each of the 42 Australian flyers who were shot down and killed. During World War II, 20,000 Australian airmen served with Bomber Command in the Royal Air Force. Their exacting two-year training, undertaken with the Empire Air Training Scheme, proved to be the difference which enabled Allied crews eventually to triumph over their very formidable foes in the Luftwaffe. What was their service like? The great military historian Max Hastings has just published his new book All Hell Let Loose in which he says of their service in Bomber Command that they did not agonise much:

… or at all, about the fate of those who died beneath their bomb doors; it was because flying for eight or ten hours either in daylight formation amid flak and fighters like the men of the USAAF, or through lonely darkness, as did those of the RAF, imposed relentless strain and frequent terror. The monotony of bombing missions was shattered only when crews encountered the hellish sights and sounds of combat and bomb runs over cities in Germany or Japan.

The bravery and sacrifice of Bomber Command cannot be underestimated. Some of them were regular RAF officers, like Group Captain Hughie Edwards, who was awarded a Victoria Cross as early as 1941 and who originally trained with the RAF. Some of them went into this conflict with diffidence. The courageous English pilot Laurie Stockwell, who was shot down over Berlin and died in 1943, asked his mother in a letter to her:

Do you remember a small boy saying he would be a conscientious objector if war came? Things happened to change that small boy's view—talk of brutality, human suffering, atrocities—but they did not have any great effect on changing my mind for I realised we are capable of doing these deeds of which we read much these days. It is the fact that a few people wish to take freedom from the peoples of the Earth that changed my views. You may have noticed I have not mentioned fighting for one's country, for the Empire. For me this is just foolishness.

These are the great people who sacrificed their lives, as the previous member said, in the struggle of Bomber Command in the Second World War. We know that by the end of 1941, 300 Australians, mostly pilots, were members of 46 Bomber Command squadrons and 1941 was the year that two Australian medium bomber squadrons were formed—445 in June and 458 in September 1941. Both of these squadrons flew regular missions over Germany by the end of 1941. The consolidation, unfortunately, of RAAF men into RAF units in Bomber Command never compared with Canadian No. 6 Group. Unfortunately, a decision was made by the RAF, with which Australia acquiesced, to have most of our people in Bomber Command absorbed into British crews.

We remember that in 1942 the Pathfinder Force was created under the command of an Australian, Air Commodore Donald Bennett, an acknowledged expert in navigation. We remember that an Australian pilot flying with 149 Squadron RAF was the only member of the RAAF flying with Bomber Command to win a Victoria Cross. Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton was flying a four-engined Stirling bomber in November 1942 when the aircraft was hit on its way to Turin. He was over the target when the aircraft was hit again, this time seriously wounding Middleton. Despite his wounds Middleton flew back to England, where five of the crew were able to bail out safely, but with fuel almost exhausted. Middleton was killed when the aircraft crashed at sea. We remember that, during the Battle of the Ruhr, the famous dambusters raid took place. Sixteen Lancasters, carrying 13 Australians, four of whom were captains of their aircraft, made this attack. Eight Lancasters were lost—an incredible loss, given the number of aircraft that participated—involving the death of 55 men, with a solitary Australian rear gunner surviving to become a prisoner of war. Of the 12 other Australians, only two were killed, with 10 returning safely.

There were 795 bombers, including 75 from the four RAAF squadrons, dispatched on the momentous British raid on Nuremberg in March 1944. Ninety-five aircraft, including five Australian aircraft, failed to return. This was the worst loss to Bomber Command during the entire war. Five RAAF aircraft, with 35 aircrew, were lost, of whom seven of the 20 killed were Australians. Another 40 Australians, including 11 pilots flying with 16 different RAF squadrons that night, were killed. That gives some indication of the Australian contribution to the air war in Europe. Australian casualties in Bomber Command reached 3,486 dead and 265 injured. After the war, 750 Australian aircrew were released from German stalags.

We should honour the men of Bomber Command for the part they played in the bombing of Germany. Mr Hastings gives a very moving account of what it was like to be in Bomber Command:

Allied aircrew, once deployed on operational fighter or bomber squadrons until the last eighteen months of the war confronted the statistical probability of their own extinction.

And they still flew. Hastings says later:

More than half the RAF's heavy bomber crews—

you have to remember that this is where all the Australians served—

perished, 56,000 men in all.

The United States Army Air Force, with 100,000 men participating in the strategic offensive against Germany, lost 26,000 killed, with a further 20,000 taken prisoner. One of the pilots of a British Whitley bomber, Sid Bufton, said, 'You were resigned to dying every night.'

The campaign was the only way the Allied forces had to influence the fight against Nazi Germany in those days. It was a fight that maintained morale during the harshest and darkest days of the war. The last visit of the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, to Berlin, in the period of the infamous Stalin-Hitler pact, took place on 13 November 1940. According to an account by Stalin, while he was there an air raid took place:

When the alarm sounded Ribbentrop led the way down many flights of stairs to a deep shelter, sumptuously furnished. By the time he got inside the raid had begun. He shut the door and said to Molotov: 'Now that we are alone together, why should we not divide [the world]?' Molotov said: 'What will England say?' 'England,' said Ribbentrop, 'is finished. She is no more use as a Power.' 'If that is so,' said Molotov, 'why are we in this shelter, and whose are these bombs which fall?'

A very apposite point that is understood if you look at the fact that, during the long years before the Allied armies engaged the Germans in strength, Britain's Prime Minister and the US President in effect colluded to proclaim the triumphs of bombing. As Hastings said:

Sir Arthur Harris, who became Bomber Command's C-in-C in 1942, said: 'Winston's attitude to bombing was "Anything to put up a show." If we hadn't [used Bomber Command] we would only have had the U-boat war, and as he said, defence of our trade routes was not an instrument of war.' Churchill regarded the bomber offensive as a vital weapon in Western relations with Stalin, in some small degree—

keeping in the war the Soviets, who were concerned about—

Anglo-American sluggishness in launching a second front.

If the great Churchill thought Bomber Command's activities—even the exaggeration of them and their effectiveness—essential to keep the Soviets in the war, I, and we, must defer to his judgments. It is all very well now to know how events turned out, but if you were faced—as the British and the Americans and indeed Australia were—with the fact that the Russians had been in close collusion with the Germans until June 1941, at any point it would have been disastrous for all of us if the Russians had made an agreement with the Germans and stopped the war. Imagine the blood and treasure that Australia, Britain and the United States would have had to invest to defeat Germany alone. So Bomber Command's role was extremely important. The great Churchill thought so, and if exaggerating it kept the Russians in the war, it was the right thing.

It is true, as the great man said, 'Bomber Command turned out to be more of a bludgeon than a rapier, but it did do the following three things: it obliged the Germans to divert growing numbers of their fighters and dual purpose 88-millimetre guns from the eastern front to the defence of the Reich. Hastings says that Berlin alone was defended by a hundred batteries of 16 to 24 guns, each manned by crews of 11. And most importantly—as we all understand from the bombing of Germany—it was also claimed by Albert Speer, the quartermaster of the Reich, who contrived to increase output even amid the massive raids of 1944, that vastly more weapons would have been built, with serious consequences for the Allied armies, if factory operations had not been impeded. There are only 11 months from the invasion by the Allies in June 1944 to the fall of Germany, but if there had been vastly more armaments production by the Germans, that would have seen a great number of Allied people killed.

I conclude by saying the campaign was the only way the Allied forces had to attack Germany. It was a fight that maintained the morale of the Western publics during the harshest and darkest days of the war. Twenty thousand Australians served during that campaign; 3,500 gave their lives and have the gratitude of this nation. Their actions and sacrifices have made the world and Australia a better place.