Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

The World War II service of late Flying Officer, John Hugh McAdam is officially commemorated by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. He is buried with his father Francis Milburn McAdam, a Gallipoli and Western Front veteran, who died at the age of 55 in 1946 who received no recognition in the way of a monument. John’s grave is in the Roman Catholic section of Karrakatta Cemetery (BC Section, Grave 0032). The official plaque is inscribed as follows:

CROSS BADGE: RAAF
427003 Flying Officer
J H McADAM
ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE

16 MAY 2005 AGE 82
LOVED BROTHER OF JIM (DEC’D), peter,
MOIRA, GERARD (DEC’D) and PAULA …. RIP

Paula applied for the commemoration and her application stated:

When John joined the RAAF in 1942 he was a non-smoker. Due to the pressure of training and the fact that the crew were handed out cigarettes, John, as well as many others, took up the habit. In June 1943 he was seconded to the RAF and flew 45 missions over Germany and France. After World War II he continued smoking. He didn’t talk about the war often but expressed the view that as a rear gunner on a Stirling bomber he was lucky to survive. Later he suffered from back problems, and poor circulation in the legs, attributable the doctor said to the cramped conditions in the rear of the plane…

On 25 April 1942 I was one of a hundred volunteers ordered to report to RAAF Headquarters, Perth to commence service in the Empire Air Training Scheme. After having sworn ‘to protect His Majesty’s person, to defend His Majesty’s realm and to repel His Majesty’s enemies, for the duration of the war and twelve months thereafter’ I was given the service number 427003 and the rank of Aircraftsman Class II (ACII) – the lowest rank in the RAAF.

We were taken from Perth by bus to No 5 Initial Training School at Clontarf, then on the outskirts of Perth. In peacetime it was an orphanage run by the Christian Brothers but it had been requisitioned for the duration of the war by the RAAF. At the conclusion of eight weeks ‘square bashing’ we were divided up to be trained as pilots, navigators or wireless operator/air gunners. I was allocated for training as a WAG and along with about 30 or 40 others in my intake was sent by train to No 1 Wireless Air Gunnery School at Ballarat. It was a six months’ course. During the final week we were informed the need for wireless operators was not as vital as the ever-growing demand for air gunners, therefore only half the course would graduate as wireless operators, the remainder would become air gunners. After four weeks’ training at No 3 Bombing and Air Gunnery School, Sale I graduated as a Sergeant Air Gunner.

After a few weeks home leave in Perth we went by train to Brisbane where we boarded a ship bound for San Francisco. We took two or three weeks to cross the Pacific then went by train across the USA, finally arriving at a town called Taunton, north of Boston. We crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth and landed at Greenock, Scotland at the mouth of the River Clyde and on 2 June 1943 (on my 21st birthday), we went by train to No 11 RAAF Personnel Despatch and Reception Centre at Brighton on the English South Coast.

At Brighton we were split up into smaller groups of six to twelve and sent to various Operational Training Units. I was in a small group of six sent to No 12 Operational Training Unit Chipping Warden, Gloucestershire. There we were assembled in our various categories, in a larger hangar while the pilots amongst us did the rounds of the various groups enquiring who would like to ‘chance it’ with him. I was approached by an English Pilot who told me he already had an Australian Bomb Aimer and would I like to join them? I agreed and we went over and I met up with Harry, the Navigator from Liverpool, David the Bomb Aimer, from Sydney, and Jonny the Wireless Operator from Wales. Tony the Pilot (who came from Surrey) then asked if we were all happy to be in his crew. If we weren’t now was the time to look elsewhere. We had no complaints so began our six weeks Operational Training on Wellingtons. During the long night trips mostly over Wales and the west of England we became a closely knit crew and would remain so for our tour of operations.

We were eventually posted to 90 Squadron at Tuddenham, Suffolk about 30 km north-west of Cambridge. There we picked up a mid-upper gunner and an Engineer and familiarised ourselves with the four engine Stirling aircraft with which the Squadron was equipped.

It was now October 1943 and the summer offensive against the Ruhr Valley (the industrial heart of Germany) had been completed. As the nights were getting longer it enabled the RAF to penetrate further into Germany’s heartland further east. We did several trips to Hanover, Bremen, Kiel, Hamburg, Kassel and Magdenburg. However, by March 1944 it was realised that Stirlings were too slow to keep up with the main Bomber Stream now mainly composed of Lancasters and Halifaxes so the Stirling squadrons were diverted to the job of dropping supplies to the French Resistance. After 20 very harrowing and very nerve-racking experiences involved in getting through to the very well defended German targets, then avoiding the bombs dropped from the Lancasters above us, I can tell you we breathed a sigh of relief at the news.

On these trips we were not part of the main Bomber Stream but travelled solo. The routine instruction was to cross the French coast at 20,000 ft. to avoid enemy coastal defences then quickly descend to 1,000 ft to avoid being detected by enemy radar. Our targets varied widely from dropping zones in Normandy and the outskirts of Paris to areas around Lyon in the South East of France. I distinctly remember one night our dropping zone was at the foot of the Alps, near the Swiss border and we clearly saw the City of Geneva lit up like a Christmas tree: a most unusual sight in blacked out Europe.

We completed our tour of 30 trips one week before D Day in June 1944. Our crew was broken up and sent to separate training units as instructors. I was sent to Moreton-in-Marsh, where I remained until December 1944. At that time a call went out for experienced aircrew to volunteer for a newly formed unit, whose purpose was to confuse and immobilize enemy radar. We flew in American Liberators from the base at Cuilton in Norfolk. They were the only aircraft large enough to house the bulky radio equipment. We had a crew of ten, three of whom were wireless operators.

At the conclusion of the European war in May 1945 I applied for and was eventually granted a discharge in England and became a Postulant in the Brothers of St John of God at Stillorgan, Dublin in September 1945. ... [end]

John flew in No 90 and No 223(BS) RAF Squadrons as a rear gunner. That position was extremely dangerous because the rear gunner was the first target in dog fights: in fact, rear gunners who were hit sometimes had to be hosed out of planes because nothing much was left of them!