Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Colin Robert Moore RICHARDSON (1922-45)

Extract from "High in the Sunlit Silence", the story of the 50 men who graduated together on a Pilots' course at RAAF Narromine in early 1942, by Tony Vine. 

Colin Richardson was born in Mendooran, NSW in 1922, the only son of Robert Roy Richardson and Viola May Richardson (née Manusu) of ‘Niloc’, near Tottenham, forty kilometres west of Narromine.

Colin’s father had served in the AIF during the Great War, as a driver in the Field Artillery. He had married Viola in the Dunedoo district in 1920. Viola’s father, Thomas Pericles Manusu, was the son of one of the earliest Greek settlers in Australia and had been a stock and station agent in Mendooran.

Roy Richardson passed away in March 1930 at the age of forty-two, leaving Viola to run Niloc as well as look after Colin and his two sisters, Ivy June and Nancy. Viola stayed on at Niloc throughout the Great Depression and up until sometime after 1957, when she moved to Lindfield, Sydney.

Colin was called up for service in the RAAF in July 1941. He completed his initial training at 2 ITS at Bradfield Park. On enlisting, his occupation was given as grazier.

He completed his elementary flying training at RAAF Narromine in April 1942 and embarked for Canada on the SS President Monroe on the 24th of that month.

On completion of his service flying training at RCAF Dauphin in Manitoba, Colin was promoted to sergeant. After a short leave in New York, he travelled to Halifax, Nova Scotia to await his transport to the United Kingdom.

Colin departed Canada on the RMS Queen Elizabeth. After disembarking at Greenock, Scotland on 4 November, he travelled by train to 11 PDRC in Bournemouth. While in Bournemouth, Colin was able to take some leave before posting to 11 AFU(P) at Shawbury, Shropshire with a number of other Narromine men to commence advanced flying training on the Airspeed Oxford. To Colin’s chagrin, he proved to be too good a pilot; along with Laurie Barnes he was selected to be trained as a flying instructor despite having only turned twenty-one while on the course.

Farewelling his mates, Colin and Laurie posted to 5 FIS to undertake ten gruelling weeks of flying instructor training at RAF Upavon in Wiltshire. While on this course, he was promoted to flight sergeant.

After qualifying as an instructor, Colin posted to 15 AFU at RAF Caistor, Lincolnshire. The base had nothing but grass runways and, because of its location, was suitable only for daytime training. Colin spent some time at a satellite airfield at Greenham Common, Berkshire, which was later developed into a major US airbase and remained under American control until 1992. A second satellite airfield at Ramsbury, Wiltshire was also part of 15 AFU.

Over the next sixteen months, Colin would train dozens of young pilots, many of whom were fellow Australians honing their flying skills to make the transition to heavy bombers. He was commissioned as a pilot officer in January 1944 and to flying officer in July 1944. While Colin was clearly a good pilot, his laid-back Australian style left him open to criticism from senior officers. The fitness report he received on completing his posting at 15 (P) AFU in September 1944 noted:

A most conscientious & loyal Officer, but not a very impressive personality. He has ample commonsense & exerts a good influence but lacks initiative, and powers of leadership are undeveloped.

Conduct has been exemplary, Progress Satisfactory, but must assert himself.

On 19 September 1944, Colin was finally released from duty as an instructor and joined 27 OTU at RAF Lichfield, Staffordshire to form a crew and commence operational training. On joining 27 OTU, Colin had already logged an impressive 1,141 flying hours – far more than most pilots about to commence their first operational tour. Colin and his crew trained on Wellingtons before converting to Lancaster bombers at 1654 HCU at RAF Wigsley, west of Lincoln, and then posted to No. 630 Squadron RAF at East Kirkby, Lincolnshire on 5 January 1945.

Colin flew successful missions with 630 Squadron until the morning of 9 April. The crew were returning from a raid on an oil refinery near Lützkendorf, east of Leipzig. They had departed East Kirkby at 1837 on 8 April, but, on their way home, they had been diverted south to 14 OTU at Market Harborough because of bad weather. At 0310, having made no contact with 14 OTU, the aircraft flew into the ground near the village of Foxton, Leicestershire, and Colin and his entire crew were killed. It was just twenty-nine days before the end of the war in Europe.

Killed along with Colin were: Sgt Pilot Bernard Gibbons, RAFVR, F-Sgt Herbert Burton, RAAF  , F-O Bob Martin, RAAF (BA), F-O William Forrester, RAAF (WO/AG), F/S Anthony Bowman, RAAF (AG) and F-Sgt Frederick Howlett, RAAF (AG). Bernard Gibbons was not a regular member of Colin’s crew; a qualified pilot, he was flying the mission in the role of flight engineer. Bob Martin had served as a gunner in the 2/9th Field Regiment, 2nd AIF, from 1940 to 1942. He served in Tobruk during the siege before transferring to the RAAF in October 1942.

The original Board of Inquiry into the cause of the crash concluded that the wireless operator had ‘failed to receive the diversion by wireless’, a finding which contradicts a previous statement in the official records that the aircraft had acknowledged the diversion order. This finding was overruled by the Air Officer Commanding (AOC), who considered the crash to have been caused by pilot error. Unfortunately, it had become standard practice among RAF and RAAF senior command to blame any crash for which the exact cause could not be determined on the pilot.

In a letter to the British Legion in the early 2000s, Colin’s brother-in-law Clive Henderson postulated that it may have been the difference in atitude between East Kirkby (about 40 Feet above sea level) and Foxton Moor (400 Feet above sea level) that resulted in the crash. It is possible that as Colin had yet to contact 14 OTU, he was unaware of the local barometric pressure (QNH). On take off, aircraft altimeters are set to the local area’s barometric pressure to ensure that they accurately read the height of the aircraft above sea level. When approaching a controlled airfield, pilots will seek, or be given, the current QNH so they can recalibrate their altimeter before landing.

Henderson’s theory does not explain why an experienced pilot like Colin, with over 1,300 flying hours, many of which were in local conditions and at night, was flying at low altitude while still 80 kilometres from his destination airfield of Market Harborough. Perhaps he thought he was flying at 500 Feet above the terrain, avoiding low cloud, and the barometric pressure had dropped by such a significant amount since he had departed East Kirkby that the altimeter error was 400-500 feet. A possibility that was ignored both by the RAF and by Henderson was that Colin’s aircraft had suffered damage over the target that may have affected the altimeter, or, because of damage, it suffered a catastrophic failure as he descended through the cloud.

In 2002, on the fifty-seventh anniversary of Colin’s crash, the people of Foxton honoured the crew with a memorial plaque that was unveiled on the wall of the Foxton village hall by Colin’s sister, Nancy Henderson.

Flying Officer Colin Robert Moore Richardson, RAAF is buried in the Oxford (Botley) Cemetery in North Hinksey, Oxfordshire England.