Category: Royal Australian Air Force

Archibald Bell, Belmont, North Richmond, Biography, Colo Shire Family History Group, Colonial history, Flying Scotsman, Genealogy, Guy Lambton Menzies, Hawkesbury, Hawkesbury Family History Group, History and heritage, National Library of Australia, National Trust Hawkesbury, Norman 'Wizard' Smith, Philip Charley, RAAF, Richmond NSW, Royal Australian Air Force, Southern Cross Junior, St Matthew's Anglican Church Windsor, Stephen Lambton, William Sims Bell, Writers to the Signet1 Comment

Guy Lambton Menzies: courageous aviator with family links to pioneers of the Hawkesbury

Carol

  Guy Lambton Menzies, 20 August 1909 – 1 November 1940, photograph c1939, courtesy Canada Bay Library. In early 1931, Guy Lambton Menzies took off from Mascot in an Avro-Avian aircraft (the Southern Cross Junior), flew solo across the Tasman Sea and landed upside down in a swamp near Hokitika on the South Island of New Zealand in the record time of eleven hours and forty-five minutes. Just 21 years of age, the intrepid aviator was an experienced pilot with more than 800 hours in his logbook. When I first started my research on Guy Lambton Menzies I had no … Continue reading Guy Lambton Menzies: courageous aviator with family links to pioneers of the Hawkesbury

Cobby, Frederick Halpin Willson, Hawkesbury, History and heritage, No 3 Squadron RAAF, RAAF, Richmond NSW, Royal Australian Air Force, Westland WapitiLeave a comment

Westland Wapitis over Richmond

Carol

Photograph from Iris Cammack collection, courtesy of Carol Roberts, Windsor, NSW. The Westland Wapiti aircraft was designed in 1926 to United Kingdom Air Ministry specifications for the Royal Air Force. It was a two-seat, general-purpose light bomber built as a replacement for the DH9A. While the Wapiti Mk 1 was fitted with a 420hp Bristol Jupiter engine, the Mk IIA was fitted with a more powerful 550hp Jupiter. It carried one fixed Vickers gun forward and one Lewis gun mounted in the rear cockpit, with a bomb load of 500lbs (227kg). Loaded, the Westland Wapiti aircraft weighed 2,450kg, about as … Continue reading Westland Wapitis over Richmond

Cammack, Morotai, RAAF, Royal Australian Air Force, Windsor NSWLeave a comment

Memories of Mother’s Day on Morotai Island in 1945

Carol

It was purely coincidence (or so I thought) that I happened to be looking through old photographs on the night before Mother’s Day this year and found an order of service for a Mother’s Day service held 73 years ago (nearly to the day) on a far-away, war-torn island. The Order of Worship for the Mother’s Day service was amongst the few photos and personal letters brought home to Windsor by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Sergeant Alfred Cammack, after the end of WWII. The service was held in conjunction with the United States 13th Air Force (known as the famous Jungle Air Force) … Continue reading Memories of Mother’s Day on Morotai Island in 1945

Anzac, Cammack, Genealogy, Hawkesbury, History and heritage, Horncastle, Horncastle Grammar School, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, RAAF, Royal Australian Air Force, Sherwood Foresters, Telecommunications, Telstra, The Great War, Uncategorized, Vance4 Comments

My Anzac Day Heroes

Carol

Our family was fortunate in that, of the family members who served in World Wars I and II and in Government or Defence Service, only one was killed in action. That one was my grandfather, Private Walter Cammack 203661 who was killed on 1 April 1918, aged 33, in France while serving with the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, 1st/5th Battalion. He is buried in the Aix-Noulette Communal Cemetery Extension, Pas de Calais, in France. As mentioned in an earlier blogpost, I was approached by the Horncastle (Lincolnshire) Civic Society two years ago to provide information and photographs about my grandfather (who came from Horncastle) … Continue reading My Anzac Day Heroes