Canberra, Wednesday 24 April 2002

Australia's forgotten Anzac heroes

This Anzac Day Professor Hank Nelson would like to salute the often forgotten army of volunteers that made up the Australians in Bomber Command in World War II.

Bomber Command flew at night above heavily defended German cities with forests of searchlights and miles of flak defences and had to release their bombs before they could return to base. The shorter nights of the northern spring and summer made these flights even more dangerous as they flew with the rising sun to airfields on the east of England.

"When you look at the statistics of Australian losses in World War II, two figures stand out: 8,000 Australians died as prisoners of war of the Japanese and 4,000 Australians died in Bomber Command," Professor Nelson said

"All the men who served in Bomber Command were volunteers, all were subjected to intense training and testing. To serve as aircrew in Bomber Command was to be subjected to repeated demands of skill, endurance and courage.

"Australians remember the prisoners of war but rarely those who fought in Bomber Command.

"There might be 300 women on an operating station. Aircrew were often driven to their waiting bombers by a woman and served a last cup of tea and a biscuit, instructed to land by a woman's voice from the control tower, debriefed by a woman intelligence officer, served their post-operation breakfast by a woman and a woman drove the hearse that carried the squadron dead.

"In those tense, exciting and exhausting times, men and women formed close relationships - ranging from the maternal and sisterly-jocular to the sexual. Over 2,000 Australian airmen married British women," Professor Nelson said.

His latest book, Chased by the Sun, is the story of 10,000 Australian volunteers who served in Bomber Command in Europe in World War II. Chased by the Sun is the first exploration of the impact of the war that brought men and women together on operating bomber squadrons.

For more information contact:
Professor Hank Nelson , Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 02 6125 4767 or
02 6241 4129; Genevieve Turville, ANU Public Affairs, 02 6125 6125 or 0416 249 245

No 50/2002

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Last Modified Tue, July 16, 2002