Chapter One, Section I
It was while serving in the Royal Australian Air Force – (RAAF) - during World War Two, that I first experienced the challenge to do the impossible. For me, Everest peaks presented no obstacle to be conquered. Rather, I was drawn to some place in the world that was totally undeveloped - agriculturally, economically, industrially, socially, morally and spiritually - backward in every sense of the word. My parents always complained that I was a bit of a "dreamer", but was this - AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?
The following pages give an account of how that challenge was met, the Strength that made it possible, and the joys of achievement that the writers wish to share with you.
It was not easy for me to join the Air Force because, prior to enlistment, I was an apprentice electrical fitter in a reserved occupation. Only under exceptional circumstances would the Apprenticeship Commission agree to the termination or transfer of contract but, miracle of miracles, all three parties - the Commission, the Firm and the Air Force - agreed that my apprenticeship be served working on the electrical systems of aircraft. What else could they do against my persistence and determination?
Flying had always been in my blood; in fact, it had been said that my brother, Noel and I were crazy about airplanes. Many of our weekends and school holidays were spent at the nearby Essendon Airport, only a few miles from home. In return for selling joy-flight tickets and doing menial' jobs around the hangar at Coode Island Aerodrome, a friend gave me an occasional free ride over Melbourne in his 1918 vintage DH-4 bi-plane, "Spirit of Melbourne".
Contrary to all my dreams, hopes and aspirations, I never did get a license to fly the machines I loved. That apprenticeship contract condemned me to the ranks of the ground staff, only a few of whom ever were privileged to get aloft on test flights. Unfortunately, most of the electrical equipment I serviced could be fully ground-tested on the bench -- generators, starters, magnetos, instruments, controls, lighting, wiring, switchgear etc. But there was one type of aircraft in which electrical fitters were included in the crews on certain test flights. This was the Beaufort twin-engine bomber, which was fitted with Curtis Electric feathering propellers. So I expressed a desire to work on this type of plane and requested training in the feathering gear. My dreams came to fruition and soon, I was clocking up many hours in thrilling flights over northern Australia.
It was on such a flight
that, for the first time, I experienced a sense of real communion with God - an
encounter that was to trigger off an exciting ministry in the service of
Christ. God had always been a household word in our home. My brother and I had
been blessed with fine Christian parents who spent their lives caring for
others. My father was a gifted organist, choirmaster and teacher of the pipe
organ, having graduated from the Royal College of Organists, London. My mother
and brother sang in Dad's numerous choirs, one of which was the five hundred
voice combined choir that sang in the Melbourne Town Hall on the occasion of
the centenary of the Anglican
It was only to be
expected that I should follow such good examples and, to a slight degree, I
did. How joyful my parents were when I was confirmed into the Anglican
It was all so familiar, but the ecclesiastical ritual didn't satisfy me and the angelic facade I presented never could have stood the test of the life I later was to spend in India. As yet, I only knew that contained within the Christian faith - somewhere, somehow - was the very Secret to Life itself. I was determined to find that Secret, and I did.
In the towns near the various Air Force bases where I later served, loving and caring people were to attract me to their homes during weekends and leave periods. One such Christian home was that of the Jenkins family of Casino, northern New South Wales, on the eastern coast of Australia. I had been based at Evington, servicing Fairey Battle aircraft. Whenever possible, I would relax in this home-away-from-home. Sadly, the time soon came for transfer to a Northern Queensland air base at Charleford, but I never forgot the Jenkins family and particularly Mrs. Jenkins with whom I maintained a regular postal contact.
As in Casino, so in Charleford, I felt drawn to Christian people and hoped that in such relationships, my quest would be fulfilled. One church in particular had a special outreach program catering to the needs of lonely airmen. Within a few weeks I found myself caught up in warm fellowship and was assigned charge over ten lively boys in the junior section of the Sunday School. I'm sure that I learned more than I ever taught, confirming my hope that one day I would discover what life is all about.
Rev. Bernard, the minister, seemed to be a very concerned person with a special interest in the Saturday night Bible Study Meeting in the manse. About forty of us attended and, following study and prayer, we would retire to our hessian and straw palliasses which were spread on the floors throughout the whole manse, on the verandas and in all the rooms; well, all except the main bedroom. Each Saturday night, the Rev. Bernard would invite one of us to share the special room with its double bed of feather mattress and soft pillows. At last my turn came and I shall never forget the occasion, as though I were in the very Holy of Holies. The fellowship meeting had been both inspiring and emotional and, as in imitation of the minister on the opposite side of the bed, I kneeled to pray, I almost felt I was actually talking to God. In retrospect, I know I was only copying the Reverend!
Nevertheless, I must have had some sort of an emotional "high" for when, as in "prayer", I buried my face in the silken eiderdown; shivers went up and down my spine, just as though I were having an attack of malaria. Some might say I was "turned on" in a charismatic sort of way, but emotional experiences, whatever their motivations, can have similar physical and psychic manifestations. When I look back on that eventful night, I know that I had not then "arrived", although I can remember thinking to myself, "This is it; this is the way."
Devotions over, we both climbed into bed, an old bed with little tension left in the woven spring mattress base. This meant having to sleep on my side, holding on to the edge of the bed to prevent myself rolling down towards the centre and on to the parson. Not that this would have inconvenienced him, for it wasn't long before he not only rolled down to the centre, but also even climbed up on my side!
The elation of the Bible study meeting had prevented sleep, so I knew I was not dreaming when the reverend gentleman began to express, in a rather intimate way, a little too much "fellowship" for my liking. I had read in the Bible of a "holy kiss", but was this a "holy cuddle"? Although I was only just setting out to be a student of the Bible, already, I had developed enough spiritual perception to realize that the parson's behaviour was not quite scriptural!
I bit my lip to test if the experience was real; sure enough it was. What should I do? As the hand of this sick man moved down from my chest, I felt both revulsion and pity, if not anger. Should I hit him or leap out of bed? I chose rather to pretend I had been asleep all along, yawned and rolled over on to my tummy, just as his hand reached my navel. Phew! He backed off and my mind boggled.
After what was a very
restless night for me, the Rev. Bernard asked me how I had slept and, telling
him a "white lie"; I thanked him for the privilege of being able to
sleep in a real bed for the first time in many months. This traumatic
experience shattered all hopes of ever finding an end to my search. Certainly,
it would not be found in the
The months that followed, took me through bouts of depression. It was as though my whole world had crumbled around me, especially as I had to forfeit the friendship of several loving Christian families, not to mention my Sunday School class. But I just could not face again that church and its minister with an "Alternative Life-Style"!
As if this experience had not been enough, the serious crash of one of our bombers threatened to let all hell loose in my mind, and caused many a sleepless night for those of us who had worked on No. 205. I remember that number well; even to this day, thirty-six years later, that number still haunts me.
The plane had undergone a major overhaul, which included the removal of many components for testing. No. 205 had been towed into the hangar nose first, for the removal and cleaning of the four fuel tanks. Two tanks were removed from either side of the plane and were placed on the respective sides of the hangar floor. The plane was then towed away to the engine shop from where it returned --- tail first. Negligence resulted in the left- hand tanks being fitted to the right-hand side and vice-versa. When control linkages were fitted to the four tanks' cocks, the latter were in the "OFF" position while the cabin control levers registered "ON"!
Finally, the time came for flight-testing, which normally would have lasted up to three hours, taking us to Townsville, then on to Mt. Isa, or north to Cairns. During that time, fuel control mechanisms would have been tested. We would have taken off with the outer tanks' control levers in the "ON" position, but the engines would have been fed from the inner tanks. After an hour's flying, the pilot would have changed from the outer to inner tanks and, during the change-over, the motors would have been starved of fuel, perhaps meaning the end of us all. On this occasion, however, the flight was of very short duration. I never before had experienced such a short test flight after a major overhaul, which seemed very strange at the time.
The pilot and his aircrew had served for a long period up north and were anxious to get away quickly to be re-united with loved ones in Melbourne. There was no time for a thorough test. Fortunately, all my electrical systems performed well. Only one minor fault was detected in the flight controls, and the pilot decided that the necessary slight adjustments to the trim tabs did not warrant another test flight with us technicians aboard. If, after adjustments on the ground, the trim tabs functioned properly, the pilot would fly over the runway, flapping the plane's wings to signal a satisfactory test and then head south where 205 was scheduled to go into service at an advanced training base in Victoria.
As we were going to lunch, 205 skimmed over the strip, flapping wings as planned, indicating that the test was successful. We put 205 at the back of our minds and enjoyed the meal. It was during the afternoon that word reached us of the crash of the plane, with the loss of four crewmen. One of the victims lived long enough to give vital clues as to what had caused the accident -- loss of fuel pressure and consequent shut-down of both motors during the change-over from outer to inner tanks. Negligence, of course, was the real cause. Following the inquiry, modifications were carried out on the fuel systems of these bombers to prevent another such mishap. You have no idea how we technicians felt on receiving the tragic news. The engine-man thought that maybe a piston had broken. The airframe-man thought that a wing could have fallen off and I imagined that perhaps a short-circuit had caused a fire. All this added to my mental depression, which continued until the full high-level inquiry determined the real cause of the crash.
One bright thought carried me through the crisis - the anticipation that I would soon get leave to visit my parents and brother, in Melbourne.
Chapter One, Section II
It was a great day when I received a pass to travel by troop train from Townsville to Melbourne. The journey was to take me through Casino and there was just enough time to send word to my dear friend, Mrs. Jenkins. As I had requested, she was at the station to meet me and provide a basket of fruit. How our tongues wagged during the precious ten minutes that it took to replenish the locomotive with water.
Mrs. Jenkins expressed real concern for her daughter, Peggy, whom I had known before her marriage. Now she was down in Melbourne, staying with her in-laws who had not treated her kindly. Although Peggy did not share these bitter experiences with her mother, the tone of her letters made it quite clear that all was not well. Mrs. Jenkins appealed to me to visit Peg and asked me to make a note of her Melbourne address.
Just then, the train whistle blew and we started to move. Frantically, I searched for a scrap of paper on which to write Peg's married name and address. All I could find was my leave pass on which I hastily scribbled the information. Then I was on my way, determined to meet Peg and bring back the report to her anxious mother. Peggy dominated my thoughts for the whole period of my week's leave in Melbourne.
On arrival home, after having been a week in the same uniform, my mother greeted me with, "Off with those dirty clothes and into the wash!" I was so jubilant at the thought of having a hot bath and tasting Mum's good home cooking, that I forgot to remove the leave pass from my shirt pocket. By the time I remembered, of course, it was just pulp, and Peggy's address was gone forever. I could not recall her married name and wondered how I could face her mother who was depending on me so much. I thought of Peggy all that week, racking my brain in the futile hope of remembering her married name - Watson.
I believe that what happened next, was nothing less than a miracle - an impossible dream. Amazingly, I had travelled over a thousand miles to a city of over a million people, with only one word - "Peggy" - to lead me to a particular person. Yet it happened that on that never-to-be-forgotten Friday, at twelve noon, in the heart of Melbourne, with the city streets clogged with shoppers, I actually came face to face with Peggy! Had I taken one step more, I would have bumped right into her.
The shock was so great that I dropped a bag of plums, which were crushed beneath the feet of the passers-by. "Peg," I gasped aloud. That was all I could say until I had regained my breath. You may call that experience what you like -- mental telepathy, extrasensory perception or pure coincidence. But for me, as it turned out, it was even more of a miracle than I at first suspected.
Peggy had with her an attractive girl, Ruth, who spoke my language. She knew how many rivets were in the "Queen Mary" and how many gallons of paint were required to coat the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Nothing trivial came from the lips of this unusual girl. In her presence, all the depressions of the previous months seemed to float away as a cloud. I was in raptures. The three of us went to a news theatrette and both Ruth and I recall how I laughed at the cartoons so uproariously that others in the theatre started laughing too. I was elated, completely beside myself.
Peggy had been living at Balmoral, a Melbourne suburb, for about six months after marriage, and this was the first occasion she had visited the city. Being a victim of tyrannical in-laws who resented her husband inheriting his grandfather's estate, Peggy had suffered considerably, at times being locked out on the veranda even during wet and cold weather. Ruth, who lived opposite, occasionally would see her crying, so invited her over to offer comfort. Consequently, they became firm friends.
One day, Ruth suggested that the two of them should visit the city, which Peggy had never seen before, except very briefly when she initially arrived from Casino. The day we met was not only my last day of leave but also the last day of Ruth's holidays. Our meeting called for a celebration.
Before we left the movie theatre, I asked Ruth if she would be my pen- friend. She agreed and the next week received eight letters written on the troop train to Queensland! I posted a letter at each stopover, including Casino, where I was able to report to Mrs. Jenkins and thus put her mind at ease over Peggy. In this way, Ruth and I began a relationship, which has lasted thirty-six years.
It was a full two weeks before I received a reply from my pen friend. It was clear from her letters and the brief conversation we had enjoyed in Melbourne, that she was a Christian - not the overbearing, "religious" type; that would have turned me right off - but a concerned, caring person who occasionally, and in a very tactful way, got in her "little word for Jesus". It was this Christian concern, which had prompted her to reach out in love and compassion to Peggy.
One day, mail from my now special friend, Ruth, included a copy of her church's magazine. While reading this paper in the pay-queue, I was slapped on the back by a jovial fellow-airman who, recognizing the magazine, said, "Hi, brother, would you like to join us tonight for prayer in tent twenty-four?"
"Brother," I
thought. "He must be one of those Masonic Lodge men." But no, like
Ruth, he was a member of the Christian
Chapter One, Section III
A four hundred and eighty-hourly overhaul of another plane, kept me busy during the weeks that followed and then came the day of the test. People get their "kicks" in a variety of ways, but for me it was skimming over tree tops, "shooting-up" beaches, flying on one motor with prop feathered, knowing that when the pilot pressed the appropriate buttons, your handiwork would get that prop spinning again.
During my early days at Charleford, we often flew over the main street. Friends could identify my bomber by the rolls of toilet paper that ribboned down towards them! The greatest satisfaction, however, came when the test pilots would O.K. our work in the maintenance log books and the planes would return to active service further north.
Most test flights, while never without thrills, became routine, having lost much of their initial glamour, however, there was one such flight that I shall always remember. Having completed my tests on all the electrical systems, I was enjoying the sights over Gregory Range when smoke began pouring into the cabin, apparently having been sucked from the engine via the wheel nacelle and wing. Frankly, I was scared.
I had witnessed several crashes and had not really recovered from the fright of being in a Fairey Battle over Evington, when the landing gear, could not be lowered. This occasion was even more terrifying because there was no place to land - no beach, highway or open, cleared field. Below us was forest, nothing but trees. For the first time in my life, I prayed spontaneously.
I could not recall any of the prayers I had learned as a child, but pleaded with God in the most contemporary Aussie lingo, to get us out of that tight situation and return us safely to base. Whether or not it resulted from my prayer, we did make it back to Charleford, where we found a broken oil pipe had been leaking near a hot exhaust.
This near-accident really shook me up and led to the revelation that I was not in complete command of my destiny but dependent on something or maybe someone "beyond". That very day, the camp mailman brought me a letter from my mother asking what I would like for my approaching birthday. Still suffering from some measure of shock, I replied immediately, -- "A Bible"!
The day this request reached my mother, Ruth was visiting her for the first time. She asked Ruth, "What's gone wrong with Keith? He's asking for a Bible!" Ruth's reply must have been reassuring enough because they went shopping together to fulfil my need. For the first time, the Bible really challenged me in a most exciting way.
My work also became more interesting as I had opportunity to service a greater variety of aircraft. These included B-26 "Bostons," B25 "Mitchells, "Kitty Hawk" and "Spitfire" fighters, "Vultee Vengence" dive bombers, "Hudsons", "Venturas", "Ansons", DC-3 "Dakota" transports, "Lodestars", "Liberators" and Australia's own "Wirraways" and "Boomerangs." Could I have wished for more, especially to fly in not a few of those I serviced?
However, the joy I had in working on these planes was overshadowed by a personal distaste for the purpose of their usage. Although I didn't fully realize it at the time, the study of the Bible was helping me to develop new ethical concepts. I became disillusioned when the planes returned for servicing, displaying "decorations" for combat achievements. A small ship painted on the side of a plane signified an enemy vessel sunk; a plane would indicate a Japanese fighter or bomber downed and a small hut recorded a village destroyed.
The more I studied the Bible and came to understand what the Gospel is all about, the more I loathed the painting of little huts on the sides of the planes I serviced. I felt as though my hands were stained with blood because those huts also would have sheltered innocent people and women and children, in particular.
Earlier, at Evington Base, I had been one of the camp cinema projectionists and often screened war films designed to psyche us up and stimulate a greater "devotion to duty". Some films shot from our strafing aircraft showed little thatched-roof huts, along with their occupants, being incinerated in a holocaust for which I felt partly responsible. After all, I had wired up many a machine gun turret, bomb rack and camera that recorded the destruction. Often I relived, in my dreams, or maybe nightmares, scenes of such horrific carnage and little huts on fire.
I came to loathe the whole damn war and was very upset when returned air crew, who often were drunk, actually boasted of the bloody terror they had wrought on those "dirty little Jap bastards", as they callously referred to the enemy. "Why was I in the Air Force?", I repeatedly questioned myself. Had I enlisted because of any desire to lay down my life for the nation? No, it was for the planes, I had to admit, not for any particular "love of country".
I had no particular hatred for the Japanese and believed that the average enemy soldier had no more desire to fight than I had. Life in the Services helps emphasize a person's character for good or bad. Under normal peace- time conditions, most servicemen are happy, caring individuals. However, in a war situation, certain troops, with the help of alcohol and deprived of female companionship, under conditions of great stress, become beasts, constantly breathing out filth, sexual obscenities and violence. "How can such people denigrate the Japanese soldier?”, I asked myself. "Where's the difference?" This was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Little did I know it at the time that, many years later, on a visit to Tokyo and in meetings with former Japanese militia-men I met in other countries, my feelings were confirmed that it was war that transformed many essentially normal people of all races into -- terrorists. Not a few of my own drunken countrymen, by their own confessions, in talking of the "missus back home" and the "Sheila’s they knocked over in the town", had exposed themselves as rapists and wife-beaters. What right had they to brand the Japanese soldiers as monsters?
I am not denying that horrific atrocities were perpetrated during the war, no doubt more so in the Japanese and Nazi concentration camps, but what we must understand is that, generally speaking, the real culprits were not the men of the "ranks". It was not THEY who had created this war; they were not fully responsible. It was the warmongers found in all races of people, the power-hungry politicians, greedy landlords, ruthless businessmen and militarists - the exploiters of society.
In my new enlightenment, I even felt sorry for the "Japs" in the films I screened, as they became living torches, setting fire to the grass with the flames from their own bodies. I was becoming bitter and resentful and hated myself for ever joining the Air Force. If the Authorities had been able to read my thoughts, I would have been court-marshalled as a traitor because of my growing “concern for the enemy". I sympathized also with the innocent natives of New Guinea - victims of both sides - as they were destroyed along with all they had in their simple dwellings. I did not then know that the day would come when I, too, would live in a similar thatched-roof hut in a jungle in India, only to suffer the same fate -- the loss of nearly all I had.
And so it was that I became a type of rebel, though one with a social conscience. I came to realize that nationalism provides no real solution to the world's political problems. "To be a Christian," I thought, "is to be an internationalist, if not a supra-nationalist." I must love my country, for sure, but if the welfare of one's own nation has to be achieved at the expense of another's and particularly, a country with stronger moral claims, then that's where we have to quit.
Up to this point, I always had associated religion with ethereal matters. It had no real relevance to life here on earth. Now I found that the Gospel was developing within me new political concepts and giving me a more ethical awareness of the needs of others. I discovered also that many of the brave leaders of the great independence movements, such as Mahatma Gandhi and those who pioneered social reform and campaigned for human rights and the liberation of women, somewhere along the line, had been influenced by Jesus Christ.
As I sat in Beaufort bombers, ostensibly servicing the electric gear, but mentally conducting my "one-man strike", I reasoned that the way has to be positive, constructive and non-violent. My thoughts continually went back to scenes I had witnessed on the cinema screen and I longed to identify with such situations, to go to some place in the world where there was ... NOTHING ... none of the things we take for granted in our "civilized" affluent society.