Australians at War Film Archive Cedric Thomas - Transcript of interview Date of interview: 20th April 2004 http://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/1852 Tape 1 00:55 Thank you for your time today. To begin with can you share with me an overview of your life from where you were born to where you are 01:00 now, just listing items and areas? I was born in Brisbane on the 8th of June 1924 and I spent all my junior years up to the age of 18 in Brisbane. I went to the Milton State School and from there to the Brisbane Boys’ Grammar School. When 01:30 I finished at the Brisbane Boys’ Grammar School I went and got myself a job with the Insurance Office of Australia where I did some exams there on insurance studies. When the war started I decided I wanted to be air crew as a pilot, so I joined the Air Training 02:00 Corps and received my Proficiency Certificate just before turning 18. So I was able to forward that as my application to join the air force. I was accepted as air crew and trained initially at Bradfield Park in Sydney and went from there to Temora where I trained on Tiger Moths and then I went to Point Cook where I trained on an Oxford aircraft 02:30 which was twin engine. I received my ‘wings’ in August of 1943. I then had to hang around a bit because I wanted to go overseas, but they wouldn’t let you go overseas until I was 19. When I was 19, luckily a boat turned up in Sydney that was going to England and I was put on that boat. It took seventy-five days to get to England because it was a cargo 03:00 boat. I finally arrived in England in September of 1943. I then went into the RAF [Royal Air Force] Training Scheme and flew Oxfords again for a period just to get my hand back in. Then I went on to Wellington Bombers and after a period on those I went to Stirling bombers. 03:30 I was then given a brand new Stirling and flew it across the Bay of Biscay, past Spain and down to French Morocco. I stayed the night there with my crew and left the next day and flew to Blida in French Algeria where my whole crew and the aircraft were all put onto one squadron, an RAF Squadron 624, where we were to operate with the 04:00 French Maquis over German-occupied France. We were only there for three operations and then a Squadron in Italy had a lot of losses and we were sent as replacement crew to 148 Squadron, which as an RAF Squadron. It was quite interesting. All our operations dealt with Special Operations Executive, 04:30 which is quite a story in itself. When the war came to an end I was sent down to Cairo and told I’d be going out to the war in the Pacific. But when the war in the Pacific finished there, I was still just outside Cairo in a tent in the desert on the Suez Canal. I couldn’t catch any boats because they were all full of people wanting to go back from England. 05:00 Eventually in November 1945 we managed to get a few of us on the Stirling Castle and we came back to Australia. At the beginning of 1946, I was on leave until January 1946, I was told I was no longer required in the air force and I was discharged in 05:30 Brisbane. I went back to my job with the Insurance Office of Australia. I was no sooner back there than the air force sent me a letter saying they’d made a mistake and they wanted me to stay in. They offered me a permanent commission in the permanent air force, prior to that I was in the Reserve Forces. I joined them 06:00 and in August once again I joined the air force and for the next six or seven months expecting to go on flying and I was given all the desk jobs around the place. I ended up as a camp commandant of the Northeast Area Headquarters at Townsville. Then I was posted down to Brisbane to the Stores Depot where I became the adjutant. 06:30 Then I flew for a short period with 30 Squadron at Sydney and then was posted to Point Cook as the first person to join the Academy after the war. I was given the task to set up an Academy. If you can imagine that was quite interesting. Luckily the Melbourne University helped out quite a lot and I set up an Academy. I stayed with that 07:00 until 1950. I was then put onto flying a refresher course. And this time they decided I was off the four engines and on to single engines. So I was then trained as a fighter pilot. In 1951 I was then sent to Williamtown in New South Wales. I was only there for a short 07:30 period and then I was sent to Japan. In Japan I joined 77 Squadron where we converted to the new British Meteor fighter that they had up there. In July 1951 I flew with the squadron over to Korea and commenced operations in the Korean War. I was the first one there. I flew the Meteors and I 08:00 served as flight commander for a period and then as deputy squadron commander. I flew one hundred missions. I was the first Commonwealth pilot to fly one hundred missions in jets over Korea. Then I was sent back in January. In January I was posted to Williamtown again, 08:30 to instruct on Vampire jets. I was only there for a short period. I had been acting squadron leader in Korea and I was promoted to full-time squadron leader and posted to command 21 Squadron. 21 Squadron was in Melbourne. I should point out that I got married at about that stage too. 09:00 With all the things that happened in my life, they all happened during August no matter which year it was, it was August. So we got married on the 30th of August. I stayed there and had a daughter born while we were at the squadron on the 15th of August. Once again there comes August again. 09:30 At the end of 1954, or the beginning of 1954, I was posted from the squadron to do the Staff College Course, which was then at Point Cook in Victoria. That took a year. That was a year’s course. Then I graduated from there and I was posted back to Sydney to Headquarters Office Command in the Blue Mountains where I became the fighter operations 10:00 staff officer. I was only there for about nine months and then got posted as the staff officer to the Minister for Air at Canberra, where I served for a year in ‘civvy’ [civilian] clothes as the staff officer to the Minister for the Air. It was the first time they’d ever had one, so I sort of made it up as we went along as to what I had to do. I had a full year of that and was then promoted to wing commander and 10:30 posted to Williamtown in New South Wales to fly the Sabre Jet. After about eight or nine months with the Sabres on the squadron the whole squadron was then posted to Malaya as part of the Emergency Force up there. I had nineteen Sabre aircraft. And that was 11:00 at a period where the Indonesians weren’t too happy with us at that stage and we couldn’t overfly the country to get to Malaya, so we had to go a long way round. We went from Williamtown to Townsville and then to Darwin and to Biak in New Guinea and from Biak in New Guinea over to the island of Samar in the Philippines. From there we 11:30 went over Sembawang and back to Borneo where we landed at Labuan and then from Labuan we flew across the water to Malaya and into Butterworth. It was just over six thousand miles with practically the lot of it over water. Anyhow, we got there and I stayed at Butterworth in Malaya until 1961. 12:00 We got there just near the end of the emergency and we had four operations, and I led the squadron on the four, against the Chinese terrorists in the jungle there. After that we stayed on and participated in numerous exercises with SEATO [South East Asia Treaty Organisation] and with the United States Air Force in 12:30 Vietnam and the Philippines and Thailand. Sorry, at the end of 1958 we got to Butterworth and at the start of 1959 my second daughter was born. She was born in Malaya. In 1961 we all came 13:00 back to Australia. What did I do then? I went into Headquarters at Canberra and I was the staff officer for Fighter Operations for the air force at that stage. And I saw and helped with the introduction of the Mirage. That was the supersonic aircraft that we got. 13:30 I was there for two years and then I got posted back to Williamtown to command 75 Squadron, once again with Sabres.