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Dark days in 10SQN diary
By FLGOFF Skye Smith
Volume 49, No. 13, July 26, 2007 |
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COMRADES ALL: FLTLT Percy Smith (third from right) and the RAAF Base Amberley equipment staff from 1952-54 are recorded for posterity.
Photos courtesy of Geoff Smith |
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| ON PARADE: FLTLT Percy Smith (right of RAAF Guard) at the Brisbane Royal Review in June, 1953. |
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The recently-discovered diaries of a former 10SQN member reveal a chilling account of life under fire in the then Coastal Command squadron.
Former FLTLT Percy Howard Smith was born in 1905. In November 1938, he enlisted as an electrical fitter in the RAAF.
In late July 1939, a contingent from the newly-formed 10SQN proceeded to the UK to accept some Sunderland flying boats that were to be used for Australian maritime reconnaissance missions.
However, with the outbreak of World War II, the squadron was assigned to the RAF’s Coastal Command.
FLTLT Smith’s diaries reveal there was a “mad scramble wiring planes” at 10SQN when war was declared. He departed RAAF Base Williams (Laverton) on November 21 for the UK aboard TSS Orontes.
His contingent was farewelled with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and a speech from Chief of Air Staff AIRCDRE Stanley Goble.
On Christmas Day, he left the French port of Cherbourg for England, and joined 10SQN at Mount Batten in Plymouth.
Assigned as a port midships gunner, he was soon in the thick of the squadron’s anti-submarine warfare, convoy escort and air-sea rescue activities. His diaries note that he once “chased a submarine for three hours” and “made mobile gun cars with K guns”.
Typical of these activities were the maritime patrols over the Channel and Bay of Biscay in company with French torpedo boats in June, 1940.
Sadly, he witnessed many of his comrades killed in action during the constant air raids on the Plymouth base from July to December 1940, and losses with shot-down aircraft.
In an air raid on November 27, No. 1 hangar burned to the ground and several aircraft were wrecked.
Caught in the crossfire, Percy was lucky not to be injured during the attack; his bedroom windows were left shattered on his bed.
His diary entry for May 24, 1940, following an attack at Bowd was brief – “blood, bones, aircraft everywhere”.
In mid-1941, 10SQN redeployed to Pembroke Dock in Wales. He experienced some of the war’s major maritime battles, and he described the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour as “quite a commotion”. On January 3, 1942, he returned to Port Phillip Bay.
After the war, he served in Air Force maritime units all over Australia and worked on various types of flying boats. In May, 1942, he was commissioned as an equipment officer and promoted to FLTLT.
Highlights of his career after the war included President of the Officers’ Mess at RAAF Base Amberley in 1953, and Fuel Officer for Her Majesty the Queen during her visit to Queensland in February 1954.
In June 1954, he discharged from the RAAF. In 1956, the Air Board granted him the honorary rank of SQNLDR and he died on December 12, 1978, aged 73. |
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