Immortalising the history of the Mount Gambier Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) continues with the Mount Gambier Aviation Museum securing the memories of a former pilot who served at the site during World War II.
After nearly 80 years, WWII veteran Ian McRae returned to Mount Gambier for the first time since he was discharged from service at the end of the war in 1945.
The Dimboola resident made a day trip initiated by museum members for the purpose of reminiscing about his time as a pilot in Mount Gambier.
The museum committee has expressed interest in establishing a dedicated facility recounting the history of aviation in the South East.
This includes a website showcasing what visitors can expect to see when visiting the museum, along with historical content presented in different forms, such as video interviews.
Members of the museum managed to source a contact for Mr McRae through the Nhill Aviation Museum.
Ensuring that his story lives on, Mr McRae’s was invited to provide a personal recount of this historical time in a video interview.
At any one time up to 1000 people could be based on site, and it is Mr McRae’s recount that will be the first video interview to be immortalised on the museum’s new website.
During the five years that Mount Gambier served as No 2 Air Observers School RAAF Mount Gambier, over 3300 trainees passed through the courses on offer.
In honour of the occasion, Mr McRae along with his son Robert and grandson James, were transported by a private aircraft from Nhill to Mount Gambier.
Flying in to Mount Gambier, Mr McRae was provided with a birds-eye view of the site he was once familiar with.
Nowadays it is a somewhat unfamiliar site with Mr McRae stating most of what he remembers is gone.
“The airport is nothing like it was when I was here. Pretty well most of it has gone,” he said.
“This was quite a large base. It was really like a small town. It was open paddocks then, but now houses.
“Aircraft sat outside … hangars were for maintenance. They were busy places.”
In 1943, at the age of 19, Mr McRae enlisted in the RAAF.
However, due to leaving school at age 14, he was unable to join as an overseas pilot crew.
“We lived 20km out from the nearest town. It was either work on the farm or board in town to go to school. Most kids who lived on farms stayed on the farm to work,” he said.
“If I put off leaving school for just a little while longer, I probably would have finished up flying bombers over Europe.
“My father was in the first World War. I thought that’s a bit rough walking over country and in trenches. I was not looking forward to army life … I thought the air force would be a lot better.
“A chap and I decided we wanted join the air crew. By that time pilots were disappearing fast over in Europe. So we did air crew training.
“I had one eye weaker than the other, so I was not classified to be an air gunman. I was very happy about that. Riding in the tail of a Lancaster did not sound too good to me.”
Instead, he trained at Narrandera in New South Wales and Point Cook in Victoria in order to join the Mount Gambier base.
His training in Narrandera and Point Cook saw him in the cockpits of Tiger Moths and Airspeed Oxford planes.
“To pass, I had to land and take off on my own. I was proud I could do it,” he said.
Mr McRae’s primary role was to train cadet navigators and observers at the local RAAF base so they could be deployed overseas during the war.
Mr McRae said a flight crew consisted of a pilot, a fully qualified navigator and two trainee navigators.
“We did a lot of low-level flying… just skimming the tree tops,” he said.
“I was a pilot in the air force for four years. I never went out of Australia.
“I trained as a bomber pilot and then I got dobbed in for instructing.”
During his time in Mount Gambier Mr McRae flew a model of the Avro Anson, which was a British twin engine aircraft designed for a wide variety of roles during World War II.
Mr McRae recalled being required to conduct a forced landing at Nhill following engine failure.
“The aircraft lost all power completely on port side. There was four of us on board,” he said.
“There was plenty of flat paddock but would have been quite an ordeal to get the aircraft out of a paddock.
“So, I decided to see if I could climb up on one motor around 3000 feet and land in Nhill.
“We stopped there a couple of nights, pulled the engine out, put another in. I had to do a test flight – landing and take-off – to see if it was running alright, then went back to Mount Gambier.”
Mr McRae found the best time to fly was at night.
“It was nice and smooth flying at night. Your eyes become accustomed to seeing at night,” he said.
“There was no electricity. There were drums, like a 44-gallon drum, with kerosine and a wick put either side of the (landing) strip.
“When he heard the war was over there was big cheer. I was here for about a month after. Surveying and mapping areas. Then went back to Melbourne and was discharged from there.”
Mr McRae returned home to continue working on the farm and married Janet Thomson, who he had met at Dimboola and maintained contact with during his posting in Mount Gambier.
“The best thing I ever did was marry Janet,” he said.
“I think the first time I recognised her was when she did her debutante ball at the Dimboola High School, and then we kept communicating during the war.”
They married in 1948 and later went on to have three children – Robert, Alison and Pam.
Mr McRae said that 12 days after celebrating her 100th birthday on December 24 last year his beloved wife Janet sadly passed away.
Not a walking stick in sight and his memory intact, it’s hard to believe Mr McRae will soon celebrate his 102nd birthday, on July 19.
“I have had a very good life,” he said, adding the secret is probably a little whiskey before dinner each night.
Though he has not flown since the end of the war, Mr McRae still enjoys all things aviation, being involved with the Nhill Aviation Heritage Centre.
“I do miss flying. I have been on flights but never flew as a pilot again. I have been invited into the cockpit when people find out I was a pilot,” he said.
Mount Gambier Aviation Museum Head of Management and Governance Don Dyson said the opportunity to meet and interview Mr McRae was by pure chance while visiting at the Nhill Aviation Heritage Centre.
“We heard of this fella who was a pilot living in Dimboola who flew in Mount Gambier,” he said.
“We wanted to make contact and go over to interview him, but we thought why not bring him here. Let him see the base … stimulate his memories of what life was like here.”
Mr Dyson said it was extremely important to preserve the history, especially when given the opportunity from a veteran.
“The RAAF base here was only one of two observer schools in all of Australia and Ian is probably the last remaining person we know of who actually worked on this base as a pilot,” he said.
“To have someone who has the history and what life was like on this base is just absolute gold to us.
“This is someone who actually trained people at this very base, so it is a huge part of our local history.
“It’s like a living history, which fits in really well with what we are trying to do with our museum.”
