Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

By: CRAIG COOK

Spitfire pilot Fred Riley is the oldest remaining Australian veteran of the World War II D-Day landings of 1944.

FRED Riley flew more than 100 combat missions in a spitfire during World War II but the last one more than 75 years ago almost claimed his life.

The 101-year-old wasn’t even supposed to be flying that fateful day on December 22, 1944, as he had a lunch date with legendary British military general Field Marshal Montgomery , who wanted to congratulate him on his remarkable flying career.

Montgomery stood him up for good reason because that morning, the Battle of the Bulge – the final German offensive – had taken another dramatic turn.

“I thought ‘If Monty’s not coming, I might as well fly’ ,” Mr Riley says at his home in One Tree Hill.

“That’s what we did. We woke up day in, day out and flew. Often two missions a day. I’d done it so many times, this seemed no different.”

He took off at noon in his gleaming late-model Mk XIV Spitfire to run patrols along the Rhine River.

That’s the last he remembers before waking two days later in a US military field hospital with a fractured skull and broken back.

It was another 75 years – just before his 100th birthday in February last year – when Mr Riley finally discovered what had occurred . Official records revealed he had been shot down by Allied artillery flak – he wasn’t surprised .

“I got shot down by the Yanks,” he says cheerfully . “They were taking such a hiding at that time, they were shooting at anything and everything.”

The Americans redeemed themselves by rescuing and caring for their victim.

The crash had another casualty – Mr Riley’s star turn in the flying squadron’s Christmas pantomime. He had only been cast in the role of Snow White because of his nickname – Snowy, for his mop of pale hair – and the fact he was too lanky to play a dwarf.

As a kid growing up in Lithgow , in the central tablelands of NSW, Mr Riley never dreamt of flying. Riding horses was his passion.

He only applied to join the Royal Australian Air Force in late 1941 because he was “forever getting into trouble” in the army, where he enlisted earlier that year.

He learnt to fly in Tiger Moths before being shipped out to Canada to continue training. The journey was hazardous , with several ships in the convoy being sunk by German U-boat submarines. Flying Yale and Harvard aircraft was also hazardous and he got severe frostbite early on before finally gaining his wings.

The former office clerk and trainee accountant with the Rubber Dunlop Centre in Sydney didn’t even have a car driving licence. Transferred to the UK, he first flew the Miles Masters two-seat monoplane and then the iconic Spitfire.

As part of 186 Squadron, later named 130 Punjab, he flew 553 hours in total and around 120 combat missions. His meticulously maintained flight log lists every mission, ending with the takeoff on the day of the crash.

Transferred to England as a patient, Mr Riley was encased in a full upper body cast that he wore for six months. Still incapacitated by the injuries, his journey back to Australia was arduous and painful.

Appalled by conditions on ship and a callous disregard for hundreds of wounded servicemen , Mr Riley joined with an officer to bravely confront a matron who was in charge.

“She was ex-navy … a proper tyrant,” he says. “The things I said to her I couldn’t repeat.”

But he did repeat them – in front of the ship’s captain, who had received a complaint from the matron. When the ship’s engine packed up a final time in Colombo, Sri Lanka and another boat was found, it had room for everyone, except two. Mr Riley and his equally troublesome colleague were left at a hospital to fend for themselves with no money.

A chance meeting with a serviceman flying cargo between Australia and India saw him hitch a lift back Down Under. Mr Riley’s officer mate wasn’t keen to travel in the empty cargo hold of the plane and had to be knocked unconscious to get him aboard.

“It wasn’t me that hit him,” Mr Riley protests.

“Poor devil … his nerves were shot. All we got was a sawdust sack to sit on. We came back via the Cocos Islands , then Perth and finally landed at Mascot (airport) in Sydney.

“I was used to travelling at 600km/h in a Spitfire and this thing could only do about 140km/h. Thank goodness we had a tail wind or I’d still be in it.”

There was no hero’s welcome home for the man who flew two missions a day during the D-Day landings, dogfighting with Nazi aircraft and escorting Allied planes, including one containing General Dwight Eisenhower, later the 34th US president, during the height of the Normandy invasion.

He returned to his job as a clerk but couldn’t sit down for long periods due to his injuries.

Having met and married his wife, Doris, in 1946, they moved to Rosewater in Adelaide’s northwest to be supported by Mr Riley’s elder brother, John, for three years while he recuperated. There his daughters , Suzanne and Kaye, were born.

Mr Riley found work with Adelaide Wallaroo Fertilizers and later – having bought a five-acre property at Salisbury, where he grew olives and almonds and the girls rode horses – he joined the Department of Works as a carpenter, rising to be a supervisor.

He was one of the first people flown into Darwin after the disaster of Cyclone Tracy in late December 1974 to organise re-roofing of offices and homes.

Retirement saw him breeding and showing goats, becoming a respected judge himself and founding the Salisbury pony club.

Mr Riley received a small UK disability pension that has never exceeded $200 a month but nothing from the Australia Government for his service until he was in his 80s.

His veterans’ card was awarded for a hearing loss sustained when his Spitfire dived too steeply as he chased an enemy plane.

Mr Riley never flew an aircraft after the day of his crash but he did sit in a Spitfire at Edinburgh Airbase – which he helped to build post-war – when he was already a centenarian.

“I remembered most of the instruments in there,” he says.

“It was a Mk VII, which I never flew. It’s the Mk XIV I remember best. I loved that plane.

“We trained on that plane by chasing Doodlebugs (V-1 flying bombs) across London and I managed to shoot one down.”

Only close family knew of Mr Riley’s remarkable service until the past few years – mainly since he received the Legion of Honour from the French Government for his D-Day exploits on the 70th anniversary in 2014.

He never joined the RSL, happy to leave the war memories behind.

He had never observed Anzac Day, either, until a relative convinced him to attend the Tanunda dawn service about 15 years ago. Since then, he’s been a regular – and the star attraction – at the One Tree Hill Anzac service.

This year will be sadly different due to the coronavirus crisis. Mr Riley will be at home with his daughters, catching up on news of his four grandchildren and nine great grandchildren .

“I’ve had a happy, lucky life,” he says.

“You do your best and hope it’s good enough. There are no complaints. Not many people have had as active or as interesting a life as I have.”

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