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The Williams brothers
 

The Williams family was one of the pioneering families of our district, being one of the first to settle on the Blackall Range, overlooking Nambour. They lost two sons in World War II.

Gordon Henry Williams enrolled at the Mapleton State School as Pupil No. 434 in the First Grade on 25th January 1926, aged 5 years 7 months. He completed his primary schooling there and successfully passed the Scholarship examination in 1934. For his secondary schooling, he attended Brisbane Boys’ Grammar School. After passing the Junior Public Examination in 1936, he entered the service of the Bank of New South Wales and was posted to Atherton, Gympie, Murgon, Cairns and Mareeba. Gordon was interested in military activities, and around 1938 became a member of the 5th Light Horse Militia as a spare-time interest. 

In June 1940, while living at Cairns, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (Serial No. 405337) and was called up in March 1941. He completed his initial 12 P.C. at Amberley, Queensland and was then posted to 2 E.F.T.S. No. 12 Pilot Course at Archerfield Aerodrome. Gordon completed his training at No. 13 Course 2 S.F.T.S. at Wagga Wagga. He was then posted to Archerfield as a Sergeant Pilot in the 23 (City of Brisbane) RAAF Squadron, and worked up his flying hours in Wirraways. 

The CAC Wirraway was an all purpose Australian two-seater aircraft built by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation in Melbourne. The name was an Aboriginal word meaning ‘challenge’. Its design was based on the North American NA-16, which was later developed by the United States Air Force into the famous North American Harvard.

On 27th March 1939, the first of 755 Wirraways took to the skies. It was powered by a Pratt and Whitney nine cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine developing 600 horsepower (447 kilowatts) through a three-bladed metal constant-speed propeller. It had a wingspan of 43 feet and a length of 27 feet 10 inches. The Wirraway could reach a ceiling of 23 000 feet,  and had a top speed of 215 miles per hour. It carried a pilot and an observer, and had a range of 720 miles. In service during the war, the Wirraway’s versatility soon became apparent, and it was used as a front line fighter, dive bomber, trainer, Pathfinder, artillery spotter, air-to-ground attack weapon and supply dropper. 

Wirraways were armed with two forward-facing Vickers 0.303 inch machine guns mounted above the motor and firing through the propeller. In the rear of the cockpit, the observer was equipped with a flexibly-mounted rear-facing Vickers machine gun of similar calibre, which could be used to fire upon an attacking enemy. When used as a dive bomber, the Wirraway could deliver a payload of 1000 lbs (454 kg) of bombs. 

During his training in these planes, Gordon flew to Mapleton on more than one occasion, circling over the school and waggling his wings for the cheering and waving children. He would fly over the homes of people he knew and his parents’ former home, providing a great thrill for the local people. Gordon was assigned to Wirraway No. A20-100, with Alan Charles Lord of Ulladulla, N.S.W. as Air Observer. On Friday 13th February 1942 the two airmen were scheduled to practise aerial fighter tactics with five similar planes over Redland Bay, near Brisbane.

Soon after breakfast, the six Wirraways took off from Archerfield Aerodrome and headed for Moreton Bay where they commenced mock aerial dog-fighting. People living near Cleveland and Thornlands were used to seeing Air Force planes take part in combat training in their skies and military flying boats landing on the bay, and usually stopped what they were doing to watch. On that fateful morning, many people were watching the Wirraways circling high overhead, unaware that disaster was only moments away. 

Suddenly the spectators were horrified to see two of the planes collide head-on in mid-air. Many eyewitnesses still remember the tragic event. One plane, power-diving with smoke pouring from it, crashed to earth in the tidal flats of the bay near Oyster Point. Even today, local residents claim that the outline of the impact crater may still be discerned. The other plane broke up as it fell, the main wreckage falling in the Cleveland Cemetery. Children rushed for safety as a wing smashed into the grounds of the Cleveland State School, where minutes before they had been playing. 

Gordon and Alan were both killed. The crew of the second Wirraway, A20-290, Sergeant Pilot George Arthur Ross Hardy and Air Observer Sergeant Frank Stanley Pledge, also died. Gordon was buried at Toowong Cemetery on 15th February 1942 with full military honours. He was 21 years old. The grave is in the shade of a pine tree, not far from Governor Blackall’s towering monument. The inscription on his tombstone reads as follows: “A noble life nobly ended.” Gordon’s memorial panel at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra is No. 101. 

Gordon had a younger brother, Bill, who had enthusiastically and proudly followed his brother’s career in the Air Force. Not quite fifteen, Bill was heart-broken by Gordon’s death. In his grief, he carefully hand-printed a poem ‘The Airman’s Hymn’ (by Wallace Llewellyn Berry), decorated it with a drawing of his brother’s ‘wings’, and framed it. He dedicated it to his brother, and added a postscript: “The most reliable Pilot ever.”

First link to poem                             Second link to poem

Soon after, 23 (City of Brisbane) Squadron was relocated to New Guinea to help stem the Japanese invasion. The Wirraways proved to be no match for the enemy fighters, though on 26th December 1942 one actually downed a Zero near Buna on the coast of New Britain. Generally speaking, they were hopelessly outclassed in the air, and sadly almost all of the planes and half of the crews never returned home.

In response, the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation developed a replacement for the Wirraway called the Boomerang. This new aircraft was a single-seater fighter whose design used so many components of the Wirraway that it became known as the ‘Wirraway fighter’. It had a much larger Pratt & Whitney R-1830-S3C4-G Twin Wasp radial engine of 1200 horsepower, twice the power of the Wirraway’s engine. With a wingspan of only 36 feet and being a little shorter in overall length, the CAC Boomerang had much better performance than the Wirraway and higher fire power with a 20 mm Hispano cannon. About 250 were built between 1942 and 1945, but as it turned out the Boomerangs saw very little air to air combat. However, they did valuable work  in support of ground operations, especially in artillery spotting, a role in which they excelled. 

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On that fateful day in February 1942, Mr Peter White had been in the air in one of the other Wirraways and saw the two planes with his four mates crash to the ground. In 1994 he began a quest to build a memorial to his friends. The outcome of his efforts was that in 1995, as part of the ‘Australia Remembers’ dedications held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, the people of the Redland Shire constructed a large memorial in Cleveland Cemetery, in honour of the four airmen who died:

Due to an oversight, the memorial omitted to mention the names of the four aircrew. Mr White worked to remedy this, and the omission was finally redressed on 24th March 2000, when an additional plaque was mounted on the memorial. This names the squadron, the planes (with pictures), the names, ranks and serial numbers of the four men, the crests of the RAAF and 23 (City of Brisbane) Squadron, and the simple message “We Honour the Memories of the Two Crews”. Two restored Wirraways from the Caboolture War Plane Museum made two fly-pasts at 500 feet with a power climb to 1000 feet in salute to the Fallen.

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Gordon’s brother William David Williams, known as Billy, then Bill, enrolled at the Mapleton School as No. 584 in Preparatory One on 23rd January 1933. He was aged 5 years and 8 months, and stayed until halfway through Grade Six. He was only twelve when war broke out, but determined that when he came of age, he would do his bit for his country. Gordon’s tragic death served to steel his resolve.

On 19th April 1945, six days before his eighteenth birthday, Bill enlisted in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve as an Ordinary Seaman II (Serial No. B,5413), and was sent to the training centre of HMAS Cerberus near Melbourne for mobilization. During his time there the war ended, and he was transferred to the shore depot of HMAS Moreton in Brisbane for additional training. On 5th March 1946 he was assigned to a ship, HMAS Westralia, and was promoted to A.B. (Able-Bodied Seaman). Before boarding, Bill had three days at the training centre of HMAS Penguin in Sydney, and then served five months sea duty.  

That September, Bill was injured in an accident in which he fractured his right patella (kneecap). While undergoing surgery on his leg at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, he suddenly suffered heart failure and died on 9th September 1946. He was nineteen years old.  

There was an inquest conducted at the time, but no-one was held responsible for Bill’s death. His father requested that the navy allow him to bury his son in Brisbane alongside his brother Gordon, but his request was denied. Bill’s Record of Mobilized Service card tells the tale: “Father informed that request for private burial cannot be acceeded to as Cabinet decision provides for burial at war cemetery nearest place of death.” 

Bill rests at Rookwood War Cemetery in Sydney. His memorial panel in Canberra is No. 9. It was a bitter blow for Charles and Flora Williams, losing two sons, and to their brothers Roy and Ernest. The parents never really recovered from their loss. Upon her passing, Flora Williams was cremated, and her ashes scattered over Gordon’s grave. When Charles Williams died, he was buried with Gordon at Toowong Cemetery.

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