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After a long trip by train and ship via Melbourne, Hobart, Auckland, Honolulu, San Francisco and Vancouver … a story in itself … he arrived at No. 3 A.O.S. Pearce, Alberta, Canada on 28 December, 1942 and his Log Book shows training commenced on 3 January, 1943. He graduated with the rank of L.A.C. on 16 April, having completed 105 hours of day and night navigation. Of the 52 Australians on that course, 26 were selected as Navigators to join the war effort in England; they were first granted leave and made the most of it by travelling across Canada, then to New York where they were welcomed by volunteer “hosts” … film star Frederick March showed Frank around the city and took him to The Met to see the opera “La Traviata”. No doubt he would have preferred Wagner, but that composer was somewhat out of favour at the time! Then came the dangerous passage by ship across the Atlantic, running the U-Boat gauntlet. They arrived in England at Liverpool towards the end of June 1943. Frank was assigned to No.18 E.F.T.S Fair Oaks, Surrey and commenced training on 4 July in D.H. 82 Tiger Moths. Coincidentally, he had taken my mother up on a Tiger Moth joy flight from Bankstown airport before the war, when she was pregnant with me!
Wartime Training and Missions Frank was successively assigned to No. 4 (O) A.F.U. West Freugh on Ansons; No. 29 O.T.U. Bruntingthorpe on Wellingtons; and then No. 1661 Heavy Con. Unit Winthorpe on Stirlings where he first teamed up with (then F/Sgt) McCurdy, the Australian pilot he was destined to spend the rest of his war flying with. The next move for them was to No.5 L.F.S Syerston for training on the legendary Lancaster; and then to No.619 and 97 Squadrons in Lincolnshire. My records are unclear, but by this time they had received commissions as P/O and F/O respectively. McCurdy, Frank and their regular crew had volunteered (or were chosen) to join the elite group of aircrew known as Pathfinder Force (PFF), who led the way by dropping flares over bombing targets and consequently suffered the highest casualty rate in Bomber Command … over 50%. A story which has been told many times in books, films and memorials. On 27 August, 1944 their Lancaster OF-P was reported MIA over the Baltic after a raid on Königsberg, a German naval base. There was one survivor … the rear gunner Sgt. Swolf, who baled out over the sea, was found on a beach in Denmark, captured and taken POW. Despite her best efforts, my mother was never able to track him down after the war but it was clear that the aircraft had crashed into the sea with all remaining crew. Only in recent years has painstaking research by military historian Tim McGrath revealed the whereabouts of the crashed aircraft, 10 km. off the Danish coast near Sejro Island. For the full story of the shooting down, even including the name of the German Night Fighter pilot, visit www.phfactor.space
Jean, Frank & Phillip (3 yrs old)
The Ironic Twist Life has its twists and turns, as we all know. And here’s the irony in my father’s tale. Along with many other Australian and Commonwealth airmen he was sent to help RAF Bomber Command fight the Wehrmacht, the Nazi war machine. In doing so, he was asked to fight the German people. Yet his great love for German culture and music was well known, with a collection of Wagner, Richard Strauss, Brahms, Beethoven and other records all left behind in Australia. I still have much of this library, most records warped beyond repair. Instead of bombing submarine bases, he would have been more comfortable enjoying performances at the Berlin Staatsoper. Of that, I have no doubt. On recent trips to Germany and Austria, I’ve been fortunate to experience many operas and concerts, and meet some really friendly, helpful people. The younger generation of Germans in particular are very cognisant of their history and if you visit, for example, the new National Socialist Documentation Centre in Munich, you get the whole unvarnished truth about the Nazi movement, Hitler, the Jewish pogroms and so on. Nothing is spared. The irony of war. Its purposeless pursuit, its meaningless destruction of so many families, its human cost. Will we never learn? As a B.A. graduate with a major in History, I have my own opinion about that. 87 87
