LATEST DISCOUNTS & SALES: PROMOTIONS
The Royal Australian Air Force in South Australia During WWII: Adelaide - Gawler - Mallala - Mount Gambier - Parafield - Port Pirie - Victor Harbor
At the start of the Second World War there was no permanent RAAF presence in South Australia, but within just two years there were several facilities housing thousands of personnel and hundreds of aircraft. The bulk of this hurried expansion involved Empire Air Training Scheme facilities and saw some 23,000 South Australians serve locally with the RAAF.
New air bases were constructed at Port Pirie, Mallala and Mount Gambier while an elementary flying training school was run from Adelaide's existing airport at Parafield. Other large ground training facilities were established at Victor Harbor and in central Adelaide. After Japan's entry into the war Avro Anson training aircraft were formed into reserve squadrons to protect South Australia's coasts. A 1942 scheme saw a ring of airfields planned for the defence of Adelaide itself. Ultimately, just one of these was completed, Gawler, and it became the only wartime South Australian airfield with a sealed runway. No. 86 Squadron, flying Kittyhawk fighters, and No. 21 Squadron, flying Vengeance dive-bombers, were both based there during 1943.
In the final two years of the war Parafield was busy as a centre for C-47 Dakota operations, housing both an Australian and a British transport squadron.
In 1945 the RAAF presence in South Australia ended as quickly as it began, and for this reason the story has been mostly forgotten. Some 147 members of the RAAF died in the state during the war and now the history surrounding their sacrifice can be told.
Born and bred in South Australia, Peter Ingman is a military history author and proprietor of the publisher Avonmore Books. Peter's core interest is in Pacific War aviation subjects, particularly those with Australian involvement. His writing career began as the co-author of the widely acclaimed Zero Hour in Broome in 2010. In recent years Peter has collaborated with Michael Claringbould to produce the hugely successful South Pacific Air War series, Volume 2 of which was named in a list of the best global WWII books of 2018. As well as being a contracted author with the British publisher Osprey, Peter is the Chairman of the South Australian Aviation Museum History Group.
