Transcript of Oral History Recording
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TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL HISTORY RECORDING Accession number S00938 Title (O18235/260714) Gibbes, Robert Henry Maxwell ‘Bobby’ (Wing Commander) Interviewer Stokes, Edward Place made Not stated Date made 28 April 1990 Description Robert Henry Maxwell (Bobby) Gibbes as a squadron leader, 3 Squadron RAAF, interviewed by Edward Stokes for The Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939-1945 R.H. (BOBBY) GIBBES 2 of 43 Disclaimer The Australian War Memorial is not responsible either for the accuracy of matters discussed or opinions expressed by speakers, which are for the reader to judge. Transcript methodology Please note that the printed word can never fully convey all the meaning of speech, and may lead to misinterpretation. Readers concerned with the expressive elements of speech should refer to the audio record. It is strongly recommended that readers listen to the sound recording whilst reading the transcript, at least in part, or for critical sections. Readers of this transcript of interview should bear in mind that it is a verbatim transcript of the spoken word and reflects the informal conversational style that is inherent in oral records. Unless indicated, the names of places and people are as spoken, regardless of whether this is formally correct or not – e.g. ‘world war two’ (as spoken) would not be changed in transcription to ‘second world war’ (the official conflict term). A few changes or additions may be made by the transcriber or proof-reader. Such changes are usually indicated by square brackets, thus: [ ] to clearly indicate a difference between the sound record and the transcript. Three dots (…) or a double dash (- -) indicate an unfinished sentence. Copyright Copyright in this transcript, and the sound recording from which it was made, is usually owned by the Australian War Memorial, often jointly with the donors. Any request to use of the transcript, outside the purposes of research and study, should be addressed to: Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345 CANBERRA ACT 2601 R.H. (BOBBY) GIBBES 3 of 43 Identification: This is Edward Stokes talking with Bobby Gibbes, 3 Squadron, Tape one, Side one. End of identification. Bobby, we've already had a very full time discussing, you know, the general story. Could you just begin by telling us when and where you were born please? I was born at Young in New South Wales on the 6th of May 1916. Right. And I understand that due to the depression your schooling was partly in Sydney and partly in Bathurst? Yes, I was sent to All Saints College in 1929-1930, but when the depression became quite severe, my family couldn't afford to keep me there any longer and I went back to a public school at Manly and ultimately Manly High. When things improved, I then went to Manly Presbyterian Grammar School to complete my education. Right. One other issue that is interesting to follow up with people is recollections of the first war. In your boyhood and your early adult life, do you think you had particularly strong recollections or a knowledge of the general tradition of ANZACS and so on in the first war? Yes I think I do. My father owned a property out near Goulburn called `Leewood', and I remember when I was quite a young kid - four or five or six - two of our station hands came back from overseas and they used to often talk about the war. They used to talk about the filth and the slime and the killing and the mud in the trenches and the rats, and I built up a healthy hatred of the very thought of war. Mm. That's most interesting. Just a moment. I know that before the war, Bobby, you were involved jackarooing and, I think, droving. You were saying though before the war, or before was was in fact declared, you yourself had seen the signs and I think had decided to learn to fly. Tell us about that. Well I, I think everyone knew that war was coming and I decided to get down to Sydney, and I left my job as a jackaroo - and I had been droving. I came to Sydney and I took a job briefly as a commercial traveller, and I wasn't much of a success at that, but it did help me pay for my first flying lessons. I only had four hours altogether, cut into half-hour periods, out at Mascot, and that went on for a couple of months. When war was declared, I thought I'd wait for King George to pay for the rest of my flying. Right. And I understand you did in fact enlist very shortly after war was declared, but it took some time to be called up? Immediately after the war was declared, I wrote to Canberra, to Fairbairn, to ask how his training scheme was going, which I had heard about. I also tried to join the navy. I went to Rushcutters Bay and applied to join the navy. I still don't know if they need me or not. R.H. (BOBBY) GIBBES 4 of 43 Right. (Laughing) You mean there's been no reply? Not yet. (Laughing) Oh, we'll have to get on to navy office about that one. Anyway, I think it was February '40 that you finally were taken in and you did your initial training, I think, at Mascot. We might skate over that. But you went on from there to Richmond where you did your intermediate training, I think with Wirraways. What's your general recollection of that training? Well at the time when we went up to Richmond and started learning to fly, converting to Wirraways, the newspapers got hold of it and they predicted that we'd all be killed as it was considered a fairly gigantic step to go from Cirrus Moths, Gipsy Moths, and Tigers, straight onto this high-speed complicated trainer. Even the instructors, I think, were quite nervous about the aeroplanes and we, of course, were doubly so, but after a while we found that they were quite a reasonable aircraft to fly. They had all the vices that any good trainer should have. (5.00) I think you were actually saying before that when you were first there some of the instructors themselves were learning to handle the planes? Well the first three or four, oh two or three hours, I suppose, my instructor seemed to do the bulk of the flying and I think he was trying to settle down to the aircraft himself. Hm. That's most interesting. What about other general recollections of that period at Richmond? For example, how did you accept and was it easy or not, the general regimentation and routine of service life? I think I didn't mind that. We lived as cadets, just near the officers' mess. We had a portion of the mess allocated to us, to we cadets. The discipline and so on was not hard to take. In fact, I think we quite enjoyed it. At night, trying to sleep was something because the boys were converting onto Hudson aircraft, and they seemed ... the flight path took them right over our barracks. They'd go over with a mighty roar. After a while we did grow rather used to that, and no longer leaped out of our stretchers. If you had to rate the quality of your training, excepting perhaps this point about the instructors themselves getting to learn, getting to know Wirraways, but if you had to rate your general training in aspects such as navigation and all the other branches of, or the theory of flying and so on, how would you rate it? Was it adequate, good, very good? I think the Australian training was way above average. I am very grateful, have been very grateful, for the last fifty years for that initial training. It was terrifically good, I think. Could you explain why? Well it was very thorough. We learned to, learned about engines, airframes, theory of flight, navigation, gunnery, dropping bombs, aerobatics of all sorts, and we even learned how to fold R.H. (BOBBY) GIBBES 5 of 43 parachutes. I might say that I was never taught how to jump with, or use a parachute, and when I did bail out - when I was on fire one day - I landed with my legs wide apart and broke my left ankle and the fibula. So it would have been nice if they had remembered to tell us how to jump as well as fold the parachute. Yes, that sounds a fairly key point. Just following on that for a moment, was that some oversight or were you pushed through courses quickly and there wasn't time, or was that a general thing, that men never did practise jumps? Well we certainly didn't practise any jumps, and I think I probably just missed out in getting the instruction as to how to land - knees bent, face .... I knew to face downwind, but I didn't know that I should land knees bent and relaxed. I landed with legs wide apart, crossways to the wind, and in a fairly high wind. And it was disaster. Yes, well we'll come to that later. Well, moving on a little bit with that training, Bobby, I think it was at Point Cook that you did your advanced training, and this was with Ansons twin-engine planes. I understand you always wanted to be a fighter, but you were concerned you might be headed towards bombers? I had made up my mind that I wanted to be a fighter pilot.