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

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the courage and sacrifice of the young Australian men who actively served in Bomber Command in World War II;

(2) requests the creation of a medal for Royal Australian Air Force men who served in action in Australian and British squadrons in Bomber Command in World War II;

(3) notes that:

(a) over 10,000 Australians served in Bomber Command, in which over 4,000 of these airmen lost their lives;

(b) Bomber Command had the highest casualty rate in Australia's military history;

(c) a Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I; and

(d) there are fewer than 100 Australians remaining who flew in Bomber Command; and

(4) calls on the Government to, as a matter of urgency, create a medal to recognise and honour Australian airmen who served in Bomber Command in World War II.

I think people here will be amazed to hear that it was as late as Thursday, 28 June 2012 when Her Majesty the Queen attended the dedication of the Bomber Command Memorial and unveiled a sculpture of a bomber aircrew in London. This is extraordinary this long after the loss of so many lives at the highest rates of loss of any group in military history. Several years ago, Australians in Bomber Command received a small clasp in some recognition of their service—a totally inadequate recognition. This motion calls on the Australia government to recognise the incredible sacrifice of those young men who were willing to go to the United Kingdom. So many of them lost their lives.

In 1940, with France defeated and the disaster of the British Army at Dunkirk, Winston Churchill could see no other road to victory than a sustained bombing campaign against the industrial might and technical advances of Germany. But the UK would need massive numbers of fighter and bomber aircraft. They also needed crew. They had neither at the time; hence, the Empire Air Training Scheme, or EATS, was born. Training of the best educated and physically and mentally fittest young men was conducted in Canada, Australia, South Africa and Rhodesia—now Zimbabwe. All these men were volunteers. After 18 months of intensive training, these teachers, farmers and teenagers not long out of school were ready to crew up to be sent across to the United Kingdom to join other crews or to become all-Australian crews with a British engineer.

As Bomber Command crews attacked over Europe night after night in the theatre of war, they were engaged in running battles with the Luftwaffe night-fighters and anti-aircraft flak. This was shot up from batteries on the ground. The losses were huge, with more than 55,573 casualties, or an attrition rate of crews of 51 per cent—the highest rate of casualties of any fighting unit in the war. An Australian crew had a one-in-six chance of completing a tour of 30 missions or a one-in-40 chance of completing a second. These casualty rates did not include those who were killed on landing back in Britain after a mission. Their Lancasters were often crippled by enemy fire. I just want to read a quick quote from a pilot landing in Britain after a Nuremberg operation. Phil Morris says: 'Flight officer Russell had a collision near Scampton in low cloud as we came into home base. It always seems to cloud up in the last five minutes of a flight at this joint. He went up in flames, as usual'—an extraordinary observation of a man he knew, a fellow Australian. There were of course also lots of accidents in training. It is tragic to think of the numbers who died in Canada in training without their loved ones there to observe their funerals.

In conclusion, I call on the medal to be most urgently created for the last remaining 100 men of Bomber Command. These men, now in their 90s, were some of our most heroic and amazing survivors of that terrible series of campaigns. Amongst those survivors is my father, Harvey Bawden—now the only survivor of his crew. Of the seven of his crew, five unfortunately were killed at the time of their 29th mission, with their bombing raid ending in disaster for their Lancaster plane. The rear-gunner, Jim Griffin, was killed in the plane coming down, and four of them were killed by a mob in a brutal murder which was later prosecuted in war actions.

I commend this motion to the House and I say that it is time that Australia stood up and acknowledged the extraordinary contribution of our great Bomber Command crews. (Time expired)

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I thank the member for Murray for her motion and I too rise to acknowledge the Australians who served as members of the Royal Airforce Bomber Command in World War II. The role of an airman in Bomber Command involved operations where they were at great risk of being shot down by the enemy or from engine failure. The young men in Bomber Command, normally only in their late teens and far from home, flew over enemy controlled Europe in the dark of night and implemented planned attacks on the enemy. Their chances of survival were bleak. Around 10,000 Australians served in Bomber Command, joining aircrews from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and elsewhere. At the height of its operations in late 1944, Bomber Command consisted of over 80 operational squadrons. The young men of Bomber Command made up only two per cent of Australian forces in World War II. However, they made up 20 per cent of air combat casualties. In fact, Bomber Command had the highest casualty rate in Australia's military history.

The tremendous courage of our servicemen in these operations cannot be understated. Indeed, two of the 20 Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians in the Second World War were awarded to servicemen attached to the Bomber Command. One of them, a 26-year-old pilot, officer Ron Middleton, was posthumously awarded the VC for his gallantry in saving the lives of his crew at the expense of his own life. While flying to Italy on 29 November 1942, Middleton's aircraft was struck by a flak over the target. One shell exploded in the cockpit, wounding Middleton in the face and destroying his right eye.

Middleton lost consciousness and the aircraft dived to just 800 feet before the second pilot brought it under control. When Middleton regained consciousness he began the long and gruelling fight back over the Alps towards England, knowing that his damaged aircraft had insufficient fuel to complete the journey.

The crew discussed the possibility—and you can just imagine what was going through their heads—of abandoning the aircraft or of trying to land in northern France. But Middleton decided to head for England, where his crew would have the chance to bail out. As they approached the French coast, the Stirling was again hit by flak but flew on. Over the English coast, with only five minutes worth of fuel left, Middleton ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft. Five men left the stricken plane and two remained on board to help Middleton before attempting to parachute to safety. Unfortunately, both were drowned. The Stirling then crashed into the sea, killing Middleton. His VC citation reads:

His devotion to duty in the face of overwhelming odds—

And they were overwhelming—

is unsurpassed in the annals of the Royal Air Force.

Dr Alan Stephens, an Australian historian and former RAAF pilot has also noted that no single group of Australians from any service did more to help in World War II than the men who fought in Bomber Command. These men, who took off on dark and dangerous missions at high risk of being shot down, sadly, have not been recognised appropriately over the years. It is to be welcomed that their service and their sacrifice was acknowledged through the creation of the Bomber Command Memorial, which was unveiled in 2005 at the Australian War Memorial. It is a stunning memorial.

I would like to thank the efforts of the many veterans involved in the creation of that memorial, and I encourage all members to visit it if they have not done so already. It is a very powerful memorial. It has some sort of twisted plane, or attachment to a plane, I think it is—it is just a beautiful memorial. It stands out in one of the sculpture gardens at the War Memorial. It is really stunning and incredibly powerful. Since 2008 the Bomber Command Association in Australia has held a special commemoratives service there on the first Sunday in June. I have attended those services since I have been the elected member for Canberra.

It is absolutely vital that this legacy continues to flourish and live on. We owe it to the 3,486 Australians who were killed serving as part of Bomber Command. And we owe it to the fewer than 100 who are still alive today. The story of Bomber Command and the bravery of the airmen serving in it is a tragically-little-known-footnote in our history, especially when compared to the public knowledge of the campaigns in Gallipoli, Kokoda and Tobruk. The harsh and shameful truth is that these Australians have never received recognition in proportion to their sacrifice, which was great and significant. These young men were the best of the best, and many paid the ultimate price. That is why I commend this motion to the House.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was my privilege to attend the book launch in Epping and it is also my privilege to speak at today's event.

It was a pleasure to meet the author, Robert Creelman. His work is most worthwhile and it was certainly a labour of love. It was also a pleasure to meet Sharman's father, Harvey. Dr Stone's father, Harvey Bawden, was a crew member of the Lancaster bomber around which this story is told. A brief excerpt from the story is:

The flak shell that brought down Lancaster PB 853 exploded very close to the starboard side of the aircraft. The blast blew the rear hatch inwards, and the hatch was sucked out into the slip stream. Shell fragments caused damage to vital functions; both starboard engines received hits and fuel lines were damaged; the result was fuel onto hot open manifolds; therefore fire. The hydraulic pump located on number three engine starboard side was one of the burning Merlins, so hydraulics were out and the gun turrets could not be moved or could only be moved by hand. Control of the aircraft was becoming increasingly difficult—

an understatement, I am sure. This book is an account of happenings that occurred in March 1945, when the Australian crew of the Lancaster bomber were shot down over the Ruhr. After jumping from the stricken aircraft, four of the crew members were murdered by German civilians. Harvey still wears leg braces for his leg injuries from the parachute jump.

The story follows the recruitment, training and deployment of the individuals who constituted the crew of Lancaster P-Peter, 150 Squadron, RAF. As was the case with so many in Bomber Command, these young men, barely into their adulthood, volunteered to serve in the RAAF and, after selection, were trained for two years. Those selected represented the very best the country had to offer, and just being selected was an accomplishment in itself.

For decades, the details of events that occurred on 24 March 1945 were not known to the families of the victims, a difficulty particularly for those two survivors who returned to Australia to live out full, wholesome lives. They and their families needed closure, despite the fact that they knew that their fellow crew members were interred in the Reichswald Commonwealth war cemetery near Kleve and that there had been trials of the perpetrators in 1946-47. The full story of the events of 24 March 1945 lay in the UK National Archives in the form of trial documents. Within those documents were accounts of the honourable behaviour of German people. The trials were instigated by the act of a young woman who was appalled by the murders and anxious that the families should know the fate of their sons and thus have closure. She wrote a note in halting English which she handed to a sergeant of the first American armoured unit to enter her village. The story is a dark tale in a dark time but one that demonstrates that righteous people are always present in the darkest of times—in this case, the hell that was the collapsing Nazi state.

At the launch of the book on 29 May 2015, over 40 descendants of the seven men from P-Peter assembled. They will finally be able to honour the crew—men who can justly claim the title of 'airborne Anzacs'. They are representatives of thousands of young Australians who were selected to fly with Bomber Command out of the UK in a bloody air campaign over Europe. The President of the Bomber Command Association in Australia, Dr Ron Houghton, has kindly written the foreword to the book. This launch was a story also of pride—the pride that a daughter would have in her father and that the father would have in his daughter.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leo Armstrong was one of many Australian pilots and navigators in Bomber Command whose job it was to fly missions in enemy-controlled Europe during World War II. He passed earlier this year. He was Uncle Leo to me. When I was a kid, the stories of his life thrilled me. I always thought that they were impossibly heroic and exciting. He was a navigator in the Lancaster bomber G for George, the second longest serving Lancaster in the war, flying 89 missions. Remembering his first mission, Uncle Leo wrote,

Being my first op I carried a reasonably big tobacco tin to use and save my walk down the back of the aircraft to the toilet. After a couple of hours of flying, and remember again it was our first op, the tin was overflowing. When the rear gunner gave the order to 'dive port' everything on my navigation table was airborne, including the tobacco tin. When we eventually got back to normal flying I found the tin upside down but not a drop spilt! We had an uneventful trip back home after that scare.

On its last mission, when the burnt-out engines could not get the plane to the required altitude for the bombing run, G for George instead carried out its mission from 2,000 feet below the other planes, where it was susceptible to attack from both below and above. While this sounds like a death wish, the aura of invincibility of G for George was so strong that the pilots and navigators convinced themselves that, having lasted so long, G for George was destined to survive its last mission. And it did. The plane, piloted almost exclusively by Australians, now sits as a monument in the Australian War Memorial, and you can go and see it for yourself.

Uncle Leo was one of more than 10,000 Australians who served with Bomber Command, an elite group of pilots and navigators that responded to Britain's desperate call for help. They carried out their duties despite impossible odds—of over 7,000 Lancaster bombers that were built, almost 4,000 were lost. The human casualty rate was also great. Bomber Command suffered the highest casualty rate in the entire British armed forces throughout the duration of the war, with 55,000 of the 125,000 aircrew dying in combat. Of the 10,000 Australians that joined Bomber Command, almost 3,500 died after being shot from the sky. Each bomber crew was required to fly 30 operations before being eligible to be transferred to less hazardous duties; only 50 per cent ever made it to that milestone. Uncle Leo flew 32 missions. Somehow, they remained jovial and upbeat despite knowing that the next flight could always be their last.

During their time in Bomber Command, the Lancaster men would take stock on their nights off and head out to the local bars and saloons. Reports of the events suggested that they enjoyed their time off, drinking liberal amounts and causing the kinds of trouble that young men often do. But, regardless of their actions, the locals always cut them slack, understanding that a night out to release some of the stress and tension that resulted in their duties was more than understandable. They were an incredible bunch of young men who, despite living in a world dominated by death and desperation, retained a jovial, light-hearted nature that Australians, particularly Australians in the defence forces, are renowned for. This kind of humour always separates Australian soldiers from those they fight alongside, and it is a trait synonymous with our national identity.

However, we do not celebrate the Lancaster men as we celebrate other diggers, which says a lot about our discomfort about the missions that these men were tasked with carrying out. In his VE Day speech, Winston Churchill actively omitted mention of the contribution made by Bomber Command. When the Lancaster men returned to Australia, they were sometimes referred to as 'Jap dodgers', accused of hiding away in England while Australia needed them back in the Pacific. They have never truly been thanked.

Veterans have complained about being officially overlooked, and they and their family members have been calling for a medal to signify their service for decades. The UK government announced the release of a clasp for service men and women who served in Bomber Command in 2013, a less prestigious award than a medal. Many veterans have boycotted it, with barely half of those eligible applying for the clasp, while others have gone so far as to call it 'insulting'.

There are less than 100 Australians left who served in Bomber Command. Many, like my uncle, have passed since the days of their service. It is high time that we showed them and their families the respect that they have always deserved.

I commend the motion to the House and I thank the member for bringing it to the parliament's attention.

Debate adjourned.