Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Reflections on my service

 FLTLFT David Whitlock Hesketh JONES  SN 416262

My World War 2 experiences started after a school arranged holiday in the snow at Mt Buffalo, Victoria. After the holiday had finished we got off the train in Adelaide.  The 5 of us walked up North Terrace towards Government House. Just before Government House,  was the old Legislative House which had been converted to the Enlistment Centre for the Air Force. One of us suggested that we all enlist as we were 18, so we did a left turn and signed up and then went home to tell our parents.  This was September 1940. We were in the Reserves for about 6 months before being called up.

The others had jobs to go to and I stayed on at school until being called up – school one day, Air Force the next. We went to Mt Breckan, Victor Harbor which was converted to an Air Force Training Camp, where we were taught discipline; how to march and say “Sir” and quite a lot of school work like Maths, Physics, Engines, firearms and so on.

From there you had a slight say in what you wanted to do – be a pilot,  Air Gunner or Navigator. I got my choice – a pilot. I was posted to Parafield to learn to fly. I flew a Gipsy Moth for 7 hours before going solo and then Tiger Moths. At the end of training there the whole course – No 14 -  was posted to Canada to finish training on service aircraft, all except me and Peter Wendt. We were posted to Pt Cook Victoria and trained on Hawker Demons which were like an overgrown Tiger Moth with Rolls Royce V12 engine – a biplane with no flaps, raised undercart or brakes.

From there Pete and I were posted to be Flying Instructors; Peter going to Temora and I to Narranderra. My brother Bill joined 12 months before I did and was also a Flying Instructor at Wagga Wagga. A week before I was to start my instructor’s course I got word that he had been killed in a mid-air collision. I was not too happy about instruction then.

We were given 4 pupils to teach to fly; to do aerobatics and formation flying in 6 weeks – then another 4. I spent 18 months at Narrandera – 1000 hours. I was then posted to Deniliquin to do advanced instructing on Wirraways – an excellent training aircraft which did not take kindly to mistakes. If you could fly a Wirraway you could fly anything. There you were taught air to air gunnery; bombing; cross country flying; night flying etc. From there pupils went on to fighters and bombers. I had 18 months at Deniliquin.

I then went to General Reconnaissance School where I learnt to make weather maps; forecasting; ship recognition; morse code and navigation by the stars etc. And then it was on to East Sale (Victoria) to fly Beaufort Bombers which at the time were used as Torpedo Bombers – nasty thought.  After the course I was posted to 100 Squadron in New Guinea which camped at Aitape The airstrip was called Tadji –  steel mesh laid over a swamp. It was very flexible and moved up and down when you landed. We slept in tents – a crew of 4 in our tent.

Our job as a Squadron was to support the Army. The mountains in New Guinea are very steep and the crests not far apart, maybe 1-200 metres. The Army would radio us to move the Japs from a ridge which was blocking their advance so they would give us the coordinates and we would take off as a Squadron in loose formation (in sight of each other) and head off to our target. As we approached the Army would fire smoke bombs onto the target and then we had to bomb the area. About 9 Beauforts would be used. After all had dropped their bombs we would strafe the mountain sides and then fly over the Army and drop them magazines and newspapers etc. I used to marvel at them as the only way they could get to their positions there was to walk up and down mountains, carrying everything with them. They would eat and sleep in the open whereas we would fly back to a shower, a good meal and a tent with a stretcher complete with a mosquito net.

After one of our raids on the way back to Tadji we were told by radio that the Japs had surrendered and the war was over. So we claimed to have dropped the last bombs on World War 2. That was on 15th August 1945 and the signing of the surrender. Commanding Officers of the three Beaufort Squadrons 7, 9 & 100 and their crews were invited to attend the surrender at Wewak. Fortunately our CO had broken his thumb on his right hand which you needed to operate the brakes on the Beauforts so he asked me if I would fly his aircraft and crew to the surrender.  I accepted. When we landed at Wewak we saw a crowd of Diggers surrounding a Jeep and in the back was General Adachi, Commander of the Japanese troops in New Guinea. The car was being driven by a Private. The surrounding crowd were taking photos and just looking. The Private yelled out, “Take your time Fellas, I’ll keep him here ‘til you’ve finished.”

The surrender was to take place at the end of a small cluster airstrip lined on both sides with Australian troops who had just comes out of the jungle & were dressed in parade uniform. We took out positions near the end if the strip so we could get a good view. General Roberts who was to take the surrender, arrived at the top of the strip in a jeep. As he drove down the strip the army presented arms. Soon after General Adachi arrived at the top of the strip with his Aides. They were ordered out of their jeeps and proceeded to walk down the strip flanked by guards. General Robertson gave the order (order arms/stand down) which meant that troops could relax and talk. As the Japs walked down the strip, the troops on either side gave them plenty of cheek and boos. When they arrived at the surrender table they took of their swords and laid them on the table. A Digger was heard to say “ .. struth, there’d be a thousand quids worth of swords there!.”  Then we flew back to camp.

After hostilities our job was to fly over remote areas of New Guinea dropping leaflets written in Japanese and native dialects to let them know the war was over and what to do.

After a month I was ordered to fly my aircraft down to Wagga Wagga to be scrapped. When I got there I lined up with hundreds of other Beauforts to be scrapped. They did not save one. Later on they spent years collecting bit and pieces from crash sites to rebuild one. Seven hundred were built – mine was 603.

The CO brought his aircraft down to take us back. He lived in Townsville, so he left his aircraft in Wagga Wagga for me to fly up to Townsville to pick him up. When we got there a crew from our Squadron was there to pick up the Melbourne Cup films. They said I had been granted harvest leave without pay which I had applied for earlier. Luckily I had the CO with me so I asked him to write me out a chit granting me leave without pay. I hitched rides in aircraft, trains and buses to get back to the farm at Cummins, South Australia. I was discharged 15 January 1946.