Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Medals: Atlantic Star, The 1939-1945 Star, The Australia Service Medal

Peter Francis Innes was my Stepfather for 6 years, he was a very confident and able Manager for several major companies in South Australia including Kiwi Australia and Dominant Chemicals. He was an accomplished salesman and sales manager who had very good mathematical skills. He was also an excellent sportsman and had great interpersonal skills. Peter won Salesman of the year in S.A. sometime in the late fifties.

Peter was the son of Thomas Francis Innes and Lulu (Stella). Peter was diagnosed in his early years with a hole in the heart, this never held him back as a keen soccer player after the War following him learning the game whilst stationed in Iceland with the Royal Canadian Air Force, he played for the Cumberland Soccer Club as a goalie.

At Adelaide High School he was a good schoolboy Cricketer and Footballer , at some stage trying out for the South Adelaide Reserve team. He joined the RAAF and passed the medical and like a lot of others who joined he may not have divulged all his health records so that he could fight for peace and the ideals of democracy. He was a very well read man with a perceptive intellect, the war service  probably stopped him from following a path to tertiary education.

Peter was a navigator on Liberators and spent a lot of Patrol time in the seas around Iceland on search and destroy missions for German U Boats, as most Icelandic people were pro-German. Fishing boats were used to refuel German U-Boats and the job of the Liberators was to catch these locals and potentially damage or destroy the U-Boats. I have one of his  RCAF Sight Log books and the altitude these aircraft flew at would have made it a perilous job, most recordings were 20 to 23 not much higher than mast height of the Icelandic fishing boats.

Peters Mathematical skills were noticed in flight school in Australia and Navigator of an aircraft was the ideal job for him. He fitted into civilian life post war and kept in touch with his mates from the war years . Peter liked a beer and loved to play the games that the War service taught them like cards, darts and snooker. He also liked to punt on the horses.

He initially married Monica and they had a daughter Barbara and divorced; he later married Yvonne, my mother, and he was a good step parent to both me and my sister for the short time he was with us.

Peter died of a coronary occlusion at home in Clearview on the 9th December 1965. - James Innes