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RAF Lancaster navigator.

‘The crew was fairly typical of those in Bomber Command. Although we were in a Royal Australian Air Force squadron, the pilot was the only Australian in the crew. I was the only officer. Mick was a flight sergeant and the remainder were all sergeants. This made no difference. We seven were firm friends with tremendous mutual trust and respect and rank or position had no part in our approach to the job. This was highly desirable, of course, in the making of an efficient bomber crew. As an officer, I felt lucky to have one or two privileges that the others did not get and to make up for this I tried to do a few extra chores around the aircraft, before or after a trip.

‘We all felt ourselves lucky to be on this particular squadron as we found that Australians were a wonderful race with whom to go to war. They had little time for anyone who pulled rank or position, and basic discipline was good, but it was a discipline coming from natural leaders with a team keen to get on with the job. As RAF chaps found, an Aussie could call a man “a Pommy bastard” and make it sound an absolute term of endearment! On the other hand, any officer who started to put on airs and graces – very few did – merited the derogatory description “He’s gone Pommy”.’