Icon of an era

AIRCDRE Arthur Pickering

RETIRED Air Commodore Arthur Pickering was a man who could quickly assess when an airman was being wrongly pursued by the system and often was able to devise a satisfactory work-around of the rigidly enforced regulations.

“Pic”, as he was called, was also regarded as a top navigator who never brought rank distinction into crew relationships and was known as a mellow guy with a dry sense of humour.

He joined the RAAF Reserves in 1941 and worked in some novel areas in his airman and officer careers before his retirement some 30 years later.

His funeral was at Duntroon’s Anzac Chapel on May 19. He died on May 15, aged 84.

The RAAF was losing pilots at an unprecedented rate at the end of 1968, when he arrived in Canberra as Director General - Personnel Services.

A special case for increasing flying pay was being made but the exercise was too long and the outcome inadequate. Pic asked for a letter to the troops explaining the situation. The authors were uneasy with their first draft as it seemed too frank; Pic strengthened the text and sent it out.

The letter was totally accurate. However, it came to the attention of public service heads and politicians and his pending promotion to air commodore was held back for about four years.

In these years, he was Commandant of the RAAF Staff College and updated the syllabus.

Promoted to air commodore in the 1970s, Pic was appointed Controller of the RAAF EDP Centre. He remained there until retiring as Director-General of Computing Operations.

Pic was initially posted to RAAF EDP Centre for a programming course, which he topped, in April 1962. From EDP, then Group Captain Pickering was posted to Butterworth as CO of the base squadron, which grew to be the largest unit in the Air Force (2900 members). The base provided for units in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand and elsewhere in Malaysia.

He was also the RAAF Base Fairbairn CO of the base squadron in the mid 1950s. In 1958, he moved to the Department of Air to serve on the staff of the Directorate of Postings-Officers and then as director from 1959-61.

In his airmen career, he flew all over the world after completing navigation training in 1942. Promoted to sergeant on graduation, he ferried aircraft from Laverton to Port Moresby where he was attached to No. 1 Rescue and Communications Squadron.

A year later he shipped to San Francisco and then to Canada for flying duties and post-graduate training and, at last, to the Bahamas for operational conversion to B24 Very Long Range Liberators.

In October 1943, he was posted to RAF Coastal Command, No. 59 Squadron in Ballykelly, Ireland, where he served until February 1945, flying 51 sorties and accumulating about 800 operational hours. He was commissioned in mid-1944 and made flight lieutenant two years later.

His professional skills were highly regarded during missions into the Norwegian gap, the Arctic convoy route to Murmansk, equally daunting sorties reaching half-way across the Atlantic, others covering the south-western approaches and shipping blockade patrols off Jutland and the west coast of France. This was the first squadron used to close the gap in the mid-Atlantic, where U-boats were operating with great success.

In September 1946, he served on the preliminary committee examining the establishment of a world-wide controlling body for civil aviation (eventually named ICAO).

Then Flight Lieutenant Pickering returned to Australia in February 1947, on posting to Air Force Headquarters for staff duties.

In 1948-49, Pic was the staff officer responsible for Operation Cumulative, a joint RAF/RAAF series of flying exercises over featureless terrain to assess the accuracy of navigation and bombing – apparently a precursor to atomic testing.

Pic completed No. 4 Staff College Course in 1951, posted to the UK as Staff Officer Navigation at Overseas Headquarters London. He then headed back to Australia, at East Sale, in 1954 as Chief Instructor of the School of Air Navigation and assumed command of the School in May 1955.

Pic was awarded an AM in the first list promulgated in the new system of Australian awards. He was the first navigator to be offered a permanent commission post-war and was promoted to squadron leader in the first post-war promotion list in 1950.

He was married to Patricia and was father to Jane, Tim, and Andrew.

Information provided by Air Marshal Dick Newham (ret’d)

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