Australians at War Film Archive Richard Cresswell (Dick) - Transcript of interview Date of interview: 17th September 2003 http://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/582 Tape 1 00:30 Thanks very much for talking to us. We can’t do it without you, and it’s a real pleasure to meet you. Can we start with where you were born? Yes. Sure. Yes, talk away. I’ll prompt you with some questions. 01:00 I was born 1920 in a little village called Franklin Village, about four miles south of Launceston in Tasmania. When I was about four years old my father died, so my mother took me to the UK, and I stayed with an aunt there for two or three years before I came back to Sydney. Those days were fairly hectic for Mother and myself, because it was the start of the Depression, 01:30 and we weren’t that well off. So I went to school in Manly and Manly West, and Double Bay and eventually when I was just coming up to eighteen years of age, I decided to join the Air Force. Did you have any siblings? No, I was the only child of that marriage. My father was forty nine when he married Mother, who was then about twenty eight. She was a de Havilland. She’d flown in 1911. 02:00 So that’s probably where I got my bloody ideas about flying from. But anyway, Mother and I settled in Sydney, until I joined the Air Force when I was about eleven days under age when I joined the Air Force. So I still haven’t been paid for the first eleven days. That was the 16th July, 1938. That’s roughly my early life story. Nothing interesting. 02:30 We’ll come back and talk about that in some detail. Perhaps you could take me through a summary of your service life. I joined number 24 course, pre-war cadet course, based in Point Cook in those days. That’s where the cadet college was, it was a year’s course, and a pretty extensive one too. Initially I learnt to fly on DH60s, which is the Moths, de Havilland Moth. 03:00 That was our initial trainer. The advanced one was a thing called Western Wapiti, great big bi-plane, and these Wapitis were used by all sorts of frontier by the RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force], and they came to us after they’d finished with them. Interesting course. It was a very hard course. Met a lot of friends on that course. Still two alive. And from there I was posted to 3 Squadron, 03:30 and that was a Demon Squadron, Army Cop Squadron, based at Richmond, New South Wales. By that time, of course, war had broken out and so they decided to make me an instructor. Initially a Navy instructor, again at Point Cook, and then to CFS [Central Flying School] Camden, to do instructors. So the next nineteen months I spent at Wagga, which is No. 2 Service Training Flying School [part of EATS, the Empire Air Training Scheme], 04:00 commanded by Wing Commander Frederick Scherger [later Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Scherger; Chief of Air Staff, 1957-61], who was a marvellous CO [Commanding Officer], really was. And from there I was posted to the Americans in 1942, the first American Fighter Wing to come to Australia which was the 49th Fighter Group, as a liaison officer and instructor, and from there to 77 Squadron in Perth, so I spent about nineteen months with 77 Squadron, back to Australia to the Fighter OTU [Officer Training Unit] 04:30 at Mildura as Chief Flying Instructor, and a few months later, in early 1944, up to Darwin, Wing Leader of the Spitfire Wing. At about that time they decided to make me Formation Commander of 81 Fighter Wing, which was a B-40 Kittyhawk Wing, then to be based at Darwin. It never happened. 05:00 They [the wing] went to Townsville, so I stayed at that wing for a while as Commanding Officer, then Wing Leader, until March ’45, and came back to Australia to do a Staff College course, and that was roughly my wartime experience. Can you just elaborate and give us a little bit more detail of where you went with 77 Squadron, and when? 05:30 Yes. 77 Squadron was formed by an RAAF Squadron Leader, who stayed there about three or four weeks, and then they gave it to me. In April ’42. No, we formed in Perth at Pearce [Aerodrome], whilst there they decided that Pearce was a target, therefore moved me out. So I took over the Dunreith golf course, just out of Perth which is now, of course, the main aerodrome. 06:00 I took over two or three beautiful houses there, four messes and quarters, and so on and so forth, and we formed two fairways into a good runway, about three thousand feet, so we could operate the Kittyhawks, and in July ’42, I was told we’ve got to move to Darwin. So I was told by the OC [Officer Commanding], he was a bloke called, 06:30 Nick, up to Darwin and find out what’s there. When I got there, a bloke called Dad Bladen, Air Commodore Bladen then, he was OC of North Western area. He said, ‘There’s nothing here, Cresswell. Build the lot’. So I got back to Pearce, got hold of five good capable people, gave them up to sixth three thousand pounds to spend, 07:00 they went across to Adelaide. They bought everything. Utilities, beds, palliasses, straw, ton and a half of beer, tools, everything. Especially trench tools, that sort of thing. So that’s how we started off, by buying all our own stuff for the squadron. And we eventually moved to Darwin in August, ’42. And between Alice Springs and Darwin, there was a dirt road, just dirt, there was no road at all. 07:30 It was a good navigational aid because you could see the dust rising from the road as the trucks were going up. Anyway it took thirteen days to get the squadron, by train, by road, and by air, to Darwin. And I was slightly abused by the then Chief of the Air Force, a bloke called [Air Marshal George] Jones, ‘why did I take so long?’ So “Dad” Bladen, the OAC [Air Officer Commanding] at North Western area said, ‘What’s your answer? So I said, ‘Send the CS [Company Sergeant] a map of Australia’. 08:00 Which he did. So, that CS and I have never talked. Never liked each other. At Darwin, we were there from August ’42 to January ’43, and we didn’t experience any daylight air raids at all, but they did come at night. And I was the only night flying, night pilot available, or trained, so I got an aircraft one night in 08:30 late ’42, November ’42, and shot down one Betty Bomber [code for a Japanese Mitsubishi G4M bomber]. And that was our first victory, and the only one in Darwin. In January, by ship to Townsville, to Milne Bay, the aircraft flown to Amberley, Queensland, we refitted a new model of the B4, the Kittyhawk, the model K, 09:00 and in February ’43, we arrived at Milne Bay, took over from the Yanks [Americans] that had been there, and we stayed there about three months, then to Goodenough Island, north of Milne Bay, and I came back in September ’42, back to Australia, to the OTU. They’d had the squad there for nineteen months. Where was that? The OTU? Yes, At Mildura, in Victoria. I went to 2OTU, Fighter OTU. The extensive operational period of that nineteen months was Milne Bay, Goodenough. That’s where we were based and we flew a lot of bloody missions across to the south coast of New Britain. Looking for enemy transport ships, small boats. Concentrations of enemy. 10:00 Lost a couple of blokes over there, including the future CO. I’d picked Daryl Sproule, who was my Senior Flight Commander to take over from me. It was agreed to by the Air Force. He was also a Tasmanian, as it turned out. Unfortunately, the last trip I did I had six, the Wing Leader had six, we were ten minutes apart. Daryl Sproule had six aircraft and he was shot down, and later beheaded by the Japanese. 10:30 So I kept it going until a bloke called Buster Brown, or Bruce Brown came up. Whom you’ve just interviewed this week, I think, and he took over the squadron from me. So that was the 77 Squadron period, and then, of course, I had the squadron again in Korea, for fifteen, fourteen, months. But that came later. What did you do between the . .? Well, in ’45 I came back, March ’45, did my staff course at Mount Martha, which was where the Staff College was, went in as Director of Training in Melbourne, in charge of all the fighter areas, and then, where did I go from there? Oh, Williamtown. I was posted to Williamtown in 1946, 11:30 stayed there for two years, I was CO for about a year, where we trained pilots for the [British Commonwealth] Occupation Force in Japan. We had three squadrons in Japan, the Occupation Force, and the 77/82 and 76 Squadron. After ’48, posted to, become a member of the Directing Staff at 12:00 the new RAAF Staff College being formed at Point Cook.