CENTENARY On March 31st, 2021, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) will commemorate 100 years of service to the Nation. From modest beginnings in 1921, the Air Force has grown into a potent, world class Air Force which Australia relies upon in both conflict and peace. When Australia calls, the Air Force is ready to respond. A series of national events and initiatives are planned for 2021 that will honour the sacrifices and service of the last 100 years, to demonstrate today’s highly capable force, and foreshadow the Air Force’s continued evolution into the future. One of those initiatives is to recognise and honour the service of Air Force Centenarians. That is people who have already turned 100 or will turn 100 during 2021. This will include RAAF Nursing Service, the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force, and the Women’s Royal Australian Air Force, but will be dependent upon how activities may be affected by COVID restrictions.
CALL OUT Two Air Force Centenarians who turned 100 during 2020 were Squadron Leader Jim Beckingsale, AFC and Flight Lieutenant Roger ‘Brian’ Winspear, AM.
Follow our Centenary Commemorative activities on our website www.airforce.gov.au/100 to keep up to date.
SQUADRON LEADER JIM BECKINGSALE, AFC BY SQUADRON LEADER MICHAEL VEITCH ‘So, Beckingsale, how do you feel about flying-boats?’ ‘Wouldn’t know, Sir. Never even seen one’ ‘Excellent! You’ll be piloting one tomorrow’. With these somewhat alarming words, then Flight Lieutenant Jim Beckingsale was introduced to the famous Consolidated PBY Catalina, to fly maritime missions lasting up to thirty hours at a stretch during World War Two. Born in Castlemaine 100 years ago on 23rd May 1920, Jim remembers having to be driven to Melbourne by his father to join the RAAF in 1940, as he hadn’t yet obtained his driver’s license. For this quiet country lad however, it was the start of the greatest adventure of his life. Like many of his generation, Jim had been bitten by the flying bug as a kid, when the heroic figure of Sir Charles KingsfordSmith dropped down onto his local football field and – for a shilling a head – offered locals a twenty-minute joy ride over the town in his trusty Ford Trimotor (Smithy - legend of aviation though he was - was permanently cash-strapped). Thus, when war was declared, Jim’s choice of the RAAF was a simple one. “Everyone wanted to be a pilot”, he recalls, “but I was lucky – I was selected to be one before I was even asked”. Swept up in the organisational goliath of the Empire Air Training Scheme, Jim was one of the relatively few Australians sent to train in Rhodesia, then South Africa and finally to No. 1 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit at Silloth, in England’s North-west. Settling into his training on Lockheed Hudsons with Royal Air Force Coastal Command, Jim was surprised one morning to be brought before the Commanding Officer. “Ah, Beckingsale”, asked the senior officer, “how would you like to go home?” Jim had no idea what he was talking about. “But I’ve only just got here, Sir”, he pleaded innocently. Unbeknown to Jim, Japan’s recent entry into the war had prompted Australian Prime Minister John Curtin to recall as many Australian forces as Churchill
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would let him get away with, prompting one of the mightiest personality clashes of the war. In fact, Jim didn’t quite make it home, but in October 1942 arrived at Koggala on the southern tip of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to join No 205 Squadron RAF, flying the Catalina flying-boat on convoy escort work and long-range anti-submarine patrols out over the vast turquoise-blue expanse of the Indian Ocean. Anti-sub patrols were gruelling affairs, involving hour upon hour of criss-crossing vast stretches of ocean in all weathers. It was mentally taxing, and often tedious work, which never allowed for one’s alertness to slacken even for a moment. As Don Brown, his trusted navigator - another Australian from Melbourne – once remarked down the intercom, “You know Beck, there’s a bloody lot of water in this war”. Sightings of the enemy were rare, but often fatal. On one occasion, one of 205’s Cats was jumped by five Japanese Ki27 ‘Nate’ fighters, setting the flying-boat ablaze, which then exploded just above the sea with the loss of all seven crew. Living conditions at Koggala were primitive, and the food was meagre “Mainly William Angliss Bully beef and rhubarb”, recalls Jim. “There weren’t much heroics in the job”. His medal row however, belies this with the inclusion (along with the rare combination of both the Atlantic and Burma Stars) of the distinctive silver shield and red and white stripe of the Air Force Cross, awarded for bravery in the air, but not necessarily in combat. While remaining tight-lipped as to the official reason for the honour, Jim recounts a surprise visit to the station by no lesser figure than Lord Louis Mountbatten. “He turned up one afternoon, accompanied by three or four beautiful ladies, uttered some brave things, then drove off in a jeep, throwing a few gongs out the back. I happened to be standing behind the jeep”. Though perhaps not as glamorous as flying the Spitfire or Hurricane, airmen like Squadron Leader Jim Beckingsale contributed to the war effort nonetheless, risking their lives doing the jobs that needed to be done in the dark days of World War Two, bringing to the task that characteristic Australian sense of duty, modesty, and humour.
