A rich innings
Somewhere above the Sahara, a nine-man bomber crew sought desperately to find their airfield before their fuel ran out. Their story has become one of the renowned tragic tales of World War II.

By Chris Clark

Keith Miller seen here as captain of the NSW Service Members cricket team.

Photo from RAAF Museum

CRICKET legend Keith Miller, who died aged 84 in a nursing home at Mornington near Melbourne on October 11, experienced a full life, including service in the Air Force during World War II. His death came some 50 years after his career as a Test cricketer ended, and he had largely retired from public life due to ill health.

But he always acknowledged the impact his four years in the service had on him, saying in one interview years ago that the war changed him by ensuring he did not want to “muck around” when he got back, but lived life to the fullest.

Links to aviation appeared in his life from the earliest days.

Born in November 1919, he was named Keith Ross Miller as a tribute to Keith and Ross Smith - the intrepid airmen who completed their epic flight from England to Australia that month.

By the time World War II threatened to intervene, he had already made his debut as a batsman, scoring 181 runs for Victoria against Tasmania in 1937 and an MCG century against South Australia in 1939.

Initially he enlisted in the Militia in 1940, driving military transports while still finding time to make a first-class debut at the MCG in January 1941.

A year later he discharged from the Army to join the Air Force.

In January 1943 Miller embarked for England, having gained his flying badge as an airman pilot the previous November. On attachment to the RAF he completed a number of advanced training courses, and was commissioned in May 1944, before he ended up with No. 169 Squadron flying Mosquitos on bomber support raids over Germany for four weeks in April-May 1945.

He returned to Australia in December and was demobilised in June 1946, a month after he was promoted to flight lieutenant. While in England, Miller had played cricket for RAAF sides against various RAF and Army combinations – in between his wartime duties.

He also won a reputation around London for playing hard in the final year of the war, always ready for a party and indulging a passion for horse racing. With the war out of the way, he immediately became a formidable presence on the international cricket stage.

In the first “Victory Test” in 1945 he made 105, and followed this with 185 for the Dominions against England. His first official Test came the next year, and he quickly won a name as one of the world’s best all-rounders.

Over the next decade Miller played 55 times for Australia, scoring 2958 runs and taking 170 wickets. He was appointed MBE for his services to cricket, and was proud when the MCC commissioned his portrait to hang in the Long Room at the Lord’s pavilion; the only Australians accorded the same distinction have been Sir Donald Bradman and Victor Trumper.

When he got back home he also returned to Australian Rules football, playing first grade for St Kilda and representing Victoria in 1946. At the 1947 Hobart Carnival, he was vice-captain of the NSW Aussie Rules team. Miller’s golden good looks in his youth earned him the nickname “Nugget”, but his air force experience helped keep him grounded in reality by making sure that he never confused war and sport.

He famously told one cricketing colleague who had been complaining to him about the pressures of the game: “Pressure, son, is when you’ve got a massive Messerschmitt 109 right up your arse.”

Similarly, he campaigned against a decision by the Victoria Racing Club to rename the William Ellis Newton Steeplechase (normally run on Anzac Day, in honour of VC winner Flight Lieutenant Bill Newton) in preference for a sponsor’s name.

Having played club cricket and football with Newton before the war, Miller was outraged and forced the VRC to back down.

He also championed his friend’s memory a few years later, when he discovered Australia Post had issued stamps featuring prominent Australians but had overlooked Newton. There was much about Keith Miller that was unconventional, and to some he had more than a touch of larrikin about him.

But everyone in post-war years regarded him as a typical Australian and a great bloke. He was a favourite of the sports-loving prime minister of the period, Sir Robert Menzies, who displayed on his desk for many years a photograph of Miller clipping a textbook square-drive.

Chris Clark is the RAAF Historian.

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