A Spitfire Pilot's Story: Pat Hughes: Battle of Britain Top Gun

by Dennis Newton

  The school’s motto, ‘Faber est suae quisque fortunae’, was adopted from a speech by Roman dictator, censor and consul Appius Claudius Caecus, translated from the Latin as ‘Every man is the maker of his own fortune’.

  In 1911, the school was split into one primary and two secondary schools: Fort Street Public School, Fort Street Boys High School and Fort Street Girls High School. Due to limited space at Observatory Hill, the boys’ school was moved in 1916 to the school’s present site, on Taverners Hill at Petersham, one of Sydney’s inner western suburbs. The girls’ school remained at Observatory Hill until 1975, when the two schools were amalgamated to form the current co-educational school at Petersham. During that time, its grounds continued to be consumed by the growing city such as when the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932 and took most of the playground. Fort Street Public School remained at Observatory Hill. Students past and present are referred to as ‘Fortians’.

  The school magazine is titled The Fortian. The issue for June 1934 contained an essay by Pat which revealed a sensitive character growing within an otherwise outgoing and at times boisterous adolescent:

  AN AUTUMN EVENING

  On a jutting crag of a mountain, a man sat, immobile, an image in living bronze, and looked into the blue distance.

  It is a land, of far-arched and unstained skies, where the wind sweeps free and untainted, and the air is that which remains as God made it.

  The face of the watcher shone with a look of wandering awe, and an Involuntary exclamation came from him as the wide view unrolled before him was changed by the slanting rays of the setting sun.

  Under that sky, so unmatched in its clearness and depth of colour, the land ‘lay in all its variety of valley’ and forest and mountain—a scene unrivalled in the magnificence and grandeur of its beauty. Mile upon mile in the distance across those primeval reaches, the faint blue peaks and domes and ridges of the mountains ranked—an uncounted sentinel host. The masses of the timbered hillsides, with the varying shades of pine and cedar, the lighter tints of the oaken brush, the dun tones of the open grass lands, and the brighter note of the valley meadows’ green were defined, blended and harmonised by the overlying haze with a delicacy exquisite beyond all human power to picture. And in the nearer distances, chief of that army of mountain peaks, and master of the many miles that He within their circle. Peace Mountain reared: its mighty bulk of cliff and crag as if in supreme defiance of the changing of the years or the hand: of humankind.

  The gracious hand of autumn had caressed the countryside and decorated it in the purest gold and brown, which mingled with the wood and grass land flowers in a galaxy of colours.

  The watcher on the peak made a frame of his fingers and looked at the scene below him. On the walls of the next Academy Exhibition will hang nothing half so beautiful.

  The long shadows of Peace Mountain crept out from the base of the mountains farther and farther over the country below. The blue of the distant hills changed to mauve with deeper masses of shadows where the chasms yawned and the gullies ran into hiding in the heart of the mountain chain.

  The sun hid itself behind the line of mountains, and the blue of the sky in the west changed slowly to gold, against which the peaks and domes and points were silhouetted as if cut by the tool of a master graver; and the bold facades and battlements of old Peace Mountain grew coldly grey in the approaching dusk.

  The very air was motionless, as though the never-tired wind itself drowsed indolently.

  And alone in the hushed bigness of that land, the man sat with his thoughts—brooding, perhaps over whatever it was that had so strangely placed him there—dreaming, it may be, over that which might have been, or that which yet might be—viewing with questioning, wondering, half-fearful eyes the mighty untamed scene before him.

  The far-away cities were already in the blaze of their own artificial light—lights valued not for their power to make men see, but for their power to dazzle, to attract and intoxicate—lights that permitted no kindly dusk at eventide wherein a man might rest from the day’s endeavour—a quiet hour; lights that hid the stars.

  The man on the peak lifted his face to those twinkling myriads who were gathering to keep sentinel watch over the world below.

  The cool evening wind came whispering over the lonely land, whilst all the furred and winged creatures of the night stole from; their dark hiding places into the gloom which is the beginning of their day. An owl flapped by, and from the mountainside below came the weird, ghostly call of its mate. Night-birds chirped in the scrub. A fox barked his staccato challenge, whilst away in the distance the clear cry of a curlew pierced the awakening sounds.

  The watcher rose slowly to his feet, and with the beauty of that autumn evening impressed on his soul, he started again on his journey, For a moment he was lost to view behind an outcrop, but then for a short time he stood, vaguely outlined against the lighter gloom of the wide-arched sky—and then he passed from sight—over the skyline.

  P. HUGHES, 4A15

  Pat left school at seventeen before completing the year and in 1935 began working at Saunders Jewellers in Sydney. Was this to help support the family, or was he aiming for an apprenticeship in jewellery making or watchmaking, both highly skilled trades? The meticulous patience and expertise of an accomplished model maker would have provided a very useful lead-in to either profession. Both held the promise of a secure and successful future.

  Perhaps they were too sedate for Pat. While he was working at Saunders he sent off applications to join the air force and navy and settled down to wait for replies. Shortly afterwards, acceptances came from both services. After seeking advice from his closest brother, Will, he chose the air force. He would train as an officer cadet for the Royal Australian Air Force in the course commencing at RAAF Point Cook in January 1936.

  In a small 1936 Walker’s Diary that Pat kept, for Friday 17 January he entered: ‘XXX – FATEFUL DAY. LEFT HOME.’

  Inside, on the page for that date, he wrote:

  This is one day that I guess the outward calm of years truly deserted me.

  I am leaving something th#I#at really must be classed as one hundred per cent.

  It’s rather hard to define it but I know the first thing I shall do when on leave will be to come straight back to see if our promises are still intact; and I make no secret of the fact that it will make the world of difference if they should have changed. Let’s hope things will be the same & I am really am sure they will.

  Over the page (on the page for Saturday, 18 January), he continued,

  With the aid of the best family in the world, I find myself aboard the 8.20 p.m. Limited for Melbourne.

  Trains usually leave later than schedule, but Fate was unkind and I was not allowed to spend with the friends on the station the few minutes that would have meant so much.

  The train wheels rattled in furious rhythm to my own thoughts, and what jumbled ones they were!16

  2

  POINT COOK

  It was a glorious sunny morning when the train stopped at the town of Albury on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. This was for the passengers to have breakfast and change over to the day car. After arranging for breakfast on the day car, Pat contented himself with a fifteen-minute stroll until it was time to depart again. The countryside was ‘definite different, quite brown and flat’, cool for the moment before the build-up of the day’s summer heat.

  Back on board and travelling alone, he settled down after breakfast to read the epic Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence, the fabled Lawrence of Arabia, during the last leg of his journey to Melbourne. By reading Lawrence’s book, Pat was also extending his knowledge of the role the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) had played in the First World War. Incidents involving No. 1 Squadron AFC, and in particular the remarkable Ross Smith, were related in parts. In 1918 under the leadership of Smith, two deadly Bristol F2B Fighters and a DH-9 had been detached from the squadron to Lawrence’s Arab Corps’ ‘X’ Fli
ght. They successfully defended the Arab encampment at Um es Surab from attacks by enemy aircraft from Deraa. Afterwards, he brought the big Handley Page 0/400 bomber (C.9681), the only one of its type in Palestine, to the Arab encampment. Compared with the Bristols its sheer size made a deep impression on the Arabs: ‘Indeed, and at last, they have sent us THE aeroplane of which these things were foals.’

  Smith, who was nicknamed ‘Hadji’ and was the only pilot ‘trusted’ to fly the big machine, used it to bomb the airfield at Deraa, destroying any remaining aircraft and hangars and obliterating the railway station, and to open General Allenby’s decisive ‘Battle of Armageddon’ on 19 September. As well as flights for the artillery or for photography, hazardous long reconnaissance flights were undertaken deep inside Turkish territory. Many of these were on behalf of ‘our Lawrence’, who needed to know exactly what was in front of him, his Arabs being prone to be inaccurate, exaggerative and vague with their military descriptions. While returning, the messages were dropped to Lawrence’s camps. Sometimes, Hadji Smith ferried Lawrence himself to and from British HQ.

  Pat’s train arrived in Melbourne twenty minutes after midday, the book unfinished. After overnight accommodation in Melbourne, on Monday Pat went by taxi to Victoria Barracks where the cadets (‘a very motley crowd’) were assembling. The Royal Australian Air Force had its largest intake of new cadets so far in January 1936. After some necessary formalities and a ‘cursory’ examination by medical officers the cadets were transferred ‘rather tardily’ by air force tenders to Point Cook, their new home.

  Point Cook is located on the western coastline of Port Phillip Bay, south-west of Melbourne in Victoria, It is an ideal site for an air training school as there is no sign of a hill or a rise in the surrounding land for twenty miles. It was selected for flying in Australia well before the First World War and indeed before the first aeroplane made its appearance in the country. Although Australia had been the only Commonwealth country to have its own operational flying corps during the war, the AFC was disbanded in 1919. A new ‘Australian Air Force’ was officially born on 31 March 1921 and the prefix, ‘Royal’, was granted soon afterwards, promulgated with effect from 31 August 1921.

  As far as was practical, it was deemed desirable to develop the air forces of the British Empire along common lines. This would be achieved by having uniform systems of organisation, arms, equipment, stores and training. The RAAF was just two years old at the time of the Imperial Conference of 1923 in London when RAF representatives proposed having RAAF officers attend training courses in England. Short service commissions in the RAF could be offered to a proportion of the pilots being trained annually at the RAAF College at Point Cook.

  Australia’s fledgling, cash-short air force stood to benefit enormously from the proposed scheme. The Air Ministry would pay for the cost of initial training at £1,500 per head. This amount would be credited to a special fund in London from which Australia could pay for other goods and services provided by the Air Ministry to the RAAF. By this method, it was reasoned, a reserve of trained aircrew would be built up which could be used to reinforce RAF squadrons in an emergency, and Australia would benefit when the men returned home after four years’ training and experience at British expense. With the Australian Defence Minister’s approval of the scheme, the first cadets were selected from those who completed training at No. 1 FTS Point Cook at the end of October 1926.

  Although the original agreement involved each RAAF transferee receiving a five-year short service commission in the RAF, with Point Cook training counting as the first year of service, the RAF soon showed interest in retaining some men for a longer period, perhaps even permanently. The Commonwealth was agreeable subject to a satisfactory financial adjustment. Then, in October 1930, the Commonwealth was asked if it wished to limit the number of officers to be accepted for permanent transfer. With the effects of the Depression resulting in retrenchments in the services at that time, Australia did not place any restriction on numbers and so the size of the courses at Point Cook increased each year.

  In 1935 the British Air Ministry suggested extending the period of short service commissions from five to six years. Again, the Australian Air Board raised no objection. Several people went on to attain senior ranks in the British service. These included such men as Air Marshal Sir Ronald Beresford Lees KCB CB CBE DFC (Point Cook graduate of 1930), and Air Commodore Sir Hughie Edwards VC CB DSO OBE DFC, a 1936 graduate who was in the senior class six months ahead of Pat. Edwards, as well as being awarded the coveted Victoria Cross, went on to become Governor of Western Australia.

  With the backdrop of a potential emerging nemesis in the form of a resurgent Germany, Japan’s activities in China and Mussolini’s Italian ambitions to expand, Britain announced measures to build up her air strength in 1935 – the RAF was eager to have as many Point Cook-trained pilots as possible. Britain’s Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Edward Ellington, said the RAF would like to increase its intake of Australian pilots to twenty or twenty-five a year, and that it was looking for as many as fifty pilots in 1936. In fact, the courses of 1936–37 did result in the largest numbers going to the UK but this was in the face of growing criticism from some RAAF officers. They argued it resulted in Australia’s best pilots being drained away to the RAF. Within the next three years the RAAF’s own expansion program would create a pressing need to retain all the pilots it could train and the arrangement with Britain was suspended. By July 1938, when the last eight Point Cook-trained pilots sailed for England, a total of 149 officers had joined the RAF under the scheme.

  *

  Forty-five young men came from all over the country for Flying Course No. 20, mostly by train, some by boat. For the majority it was their first time away from home more than just a few days, and it meant a major change in their style of life. It was an extremely hot mid-January day when they were assembled. All were issued with heavy black boots, socks, overalls and a black beret followed by an army rifle, a belt and a bayonet. Then they were subjected to a pep-talk by an unsmiling, immaculately dressed flying officer in what looked like an army uniform. It was actually the RAAF’s summer dress but to the untrained eye it did look like an army uniform.

  At first they were grouped alphabetically into two flights but their positions in the mess were fixed so that they dined with different people. They were divided up yet again in the afternoons on the sporting fields, so it did not take long for everyone to get to know each other. For the next month the newcomers were subjected to endless military drills, physical training and gymnastic exercises, long hikes or marches – usually carrying packs as well as the rifles – and cross-country runs. This took up half the working day. The other half was occupied with lectures.

  Pat’s first roommate was Bob Cosgrove from a well-known Tasmanian family. He was described as ‘a nuggetty, pleasant lad with reddish curly hair and a somewhat white skin which was unusual’, in direct contrast to Pat. When Bob told his father, who was an eminent figure in the state’s Labor government, that he was going to join the RAAF, the news was not well received. Bob went ahead with his decision anyway. Pat and Bob became close friends.

  Peter McDonough in the room next door had moved from Ulverstone in Tasmania to Victoria. He had a dry but quick sense of humour matched to a lazy drawl. He walked with a slouching gait which looked like it should belong to a much taller man. As it was, Peter was short, very slim, and had all the mannerisms of a tall, gangling, uncoordinated adolescent. This was deceptive because he was actually sharp-witted and physically as quick as a cat, which showed up on the sporting field in almost any game. He was an outstanding wicketkeeper at cricket.

  Peter’s roommate was Gordon Olive, an equally short but talkative young man from Queensland. Everyone simply called him ‘Olive’. He had a light, almost frail build and straight dark hair, and in his early years had suffered from asthma, which was diagnosed as chronic bronchitis at the time. As an adolescent, his family had moved from one side of
Brisbane to the other to be closer the beach, a move which cured his ‘asthma’ completely. From that point onwards he hurled himself into all forms of sport with great interest and enthusiasm. He was much tougher than he looked.

  Writing years later, Gordon remembered Pat and the others vividly:

  Pat Hughes … was a big, well-built fellow with more boisterous life in him than anyone I have ever met. Pat just loved life and lived it at high pressure. Part of his tremendous ‘joie de vivre’ expressed itself as a compulsion to sing, and Pat sang at all possible opportunities. He had one volume – flat out at the top of his lungs. He was at his best in the shower, which he took three times a day in summer and on each occasion he really shook the ‘Wind Tunnel’ with the vigour of his delivery.

  Unfortunately for the rest of the occupants of the tunnel, Pat was tone deaf and most of his strenuous efforts were supported by a rich obbligato of catcalls, groans and complaints which rose to a crescendo as the ablutions progressed. But Pat seemed oblivious to these protests – no doubt he drowned most of them out for most of the time, and when he drew breath, thought he had really got the whole camp singing. The fact that the chorus of groans and abuse was not in harmony with his own efforts would have had no significance to Pat.

  Eventually we gave up trying to shut him up; we just accepted it as part of life, but it was my first introduction to someone who was virtually tone deaf and quite oblivious and uninhibited about it.1