The lead-up to this 100 year anniversary of the landing of ANZAC troops at Gallipoli has seen what must be an unprecedented amount of interest in not just the Gallipoli campaign and World War I but in war generally, the military experience and the complex effects and impacts of military actions throughout history.
The central theme is remembrance. ‘Lest we forget’, we ritually say to honour the memory of all of those who fought and made sacrifices but especially those who died – who never returned home. And we also remember because we worry that, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Remembering his service in the RAF in WWII is something Jeffries Perry has done a lot more of in recent years; or at least that’s how it seems from his family’s point of view. His daughter, Julia, says he has been much more willing than before to share his memories and stories with them.
Perhaps it is connected somehow to his 100th birthday next month – a landmark time in any life and cause for reflection.
Those flying machines
Jeff Perry was a 25-year-old farmer from a property called Gunningbar – off the Mitchell Highway between Dubbo and Nyngan in NSW – before he left for the war in 1940.
Perry initially learned to fly on the farm, but he was keen to join the RAAF. In Australia he trained as a fighter pilot – flying Wirraways – and loved aerobatics, so when he was seconded to the British air service, the RAF, he was keen for the chance to move onto Spitfires and Hurricanes. But in 1940, with casualties climbing, the RAF was looking for more bomber pilots. It happened that, in medical tests, Perry proved to have exceptional night vision, so upon arriving in England, he was sent straight to Bomber Command.
Based in northern Scotland at the RAF’s Lossiemouth base, Perry trained on a plane called a Vickers Wellington, or simply a ‘Wellington’ – a British twin-engine, long-range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s. Affectionately referred to as the ‘Wimpey’ by its crews, the RAF says ‘the Wellington’ flew on many of the defining operations until its last bombing mission over the Reich in October 1943.
With the American Air Force, the RAF’s Bomber Command played the central role in the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II. Perry and his crew flew 37 successful bomber missions over two years (the standard tour was 30 missions) over Germany, dropping bombs on their targets and (mostly) ducking enemy fire.
“The Germans would try to shine search lights on you and the gunners would try to shoot you down. I was picked up four times and I got a few holes on one occasion but I managed to get home every time.”
Enemy fire
Unlike the later Lancasters and Halifaxes, Perry tells me, the Wellingtons had only a limited flying range in terms of both distance and altitude.
“The Wellington’s could only bomb from as high as 12,000 feet which was within the range of enemy shells that exploded at that height. The Lancasters were much safer because they could bomb from 22,000 feet.”
“It was interesting flying over the sea and finding targets at night,” he says. “We didn’t have much in terms of defensive armaments on a Wellington.
“The Germans would try to shine search lights on you and the gunners would try to shoot you down. I was picked up four times and I got a few holes on one occasion but I managed to get home every time.”
“I was lucky,” he says. But his earlier training in the Spitfires and Hurricanes and his love of aerobatics also served him well. “You’d see the flash of light and then it took five to six seconds for the shell to reach you. I took evasive action, I’d zig-zag, turning the plane from one side to the other every ten seconds or so.”
To avoid the potential problem of being shot at by your own side on your return, the bombers had a special signal system housed in the nose cone. On one occasion, the nose cone on Perry’s plane was damaged by enemy shelling; the signal system failed; and he was targeted by his own allied forces as he tried to return to base. Fortunately for him, he quipps, “those blokes weren’t as good a shot as the Germans.”
Well, he is here to tell the tale. But of course many of Perry’s friends and crew members did not survive to tell the tale.
The personal toll
Of more than 10,000 Australians who served in RAF Bomber Command in WW2, 3486 died on operations, and several hundred more were killed in training accidents and other mishaps. Across the whole of Bomber Command, the death rate was close to fifty per cent.
Seventy-three years after his return, it’s the tragic loss of one particular friend and roommate who Jeffrey finds himself revisiting the most. Alan, a Queenslander, was shot down and landed in the sea, managing to activate the small emergency inflatable dinghy. Thinking it was all but over for him, he used his emergency flare to attract the attention of nearby ship that might well have been German. Incredibly (and not before his stomach sank at the foreign uniforms and accents), it was Norwegian. He was taken back to Norway and from there was able to get back to the Lossiemouth RAF base.
“Alan couldn’t fly properly. He was shaking, he couldn’t keep the compass steady and find the direction. He was zig-zagging all over the place. I told the officer there was no way he could fly,”
It was an unusual and welcome return for Alan, says Perry, since his friend had been presumed lost. But things were not well. “His nerves were shaken. He would scream out in the night. He had terrible night terrors,” says Perry.
Alan urged Jeff not to tell any of the senior officers but Perry was worried about the safety of his friend and his crews, should he get back in the cockpit while in this state. Risking the friendship, Perry did speak to a senior officer.
Perry was tasked with taking his friend up for a test flight to see how we would go flying again.
“Alan couldn’t fly properly. He was shaking, he couldn’t keep the compass steady and find the direction. He was zig-zagging all over the place. I told the officer there was no way he could fly,” says Perry.
So Alan was sent for three weeks R&R. When he returned, again Jeff was asked to take his friend up for a test flight, to see if he had improved following his holiday break.
“He wasn’t much better,” Perry recalls but again, Alan asked his friend not to say anything. Again, Perry went against his friend’s wishes and told the senior officer he did not think Alan should be allowed to fly.
It was all for nought in the end. Alan was upset with Jeff, Jeff felt miserable and the senior officer agreed to allow Alan back in the cockpit anyway.
They gave Alan a strong, experienced crew – Jeff’s own excellent, tight-knit team – for his first flight. None of them returned. Today, it’s the thing that troubles Jeff Perry the most.
“It’s the thing from that period that I think about the most these days,” he says.
Fair recognition
Returning home to take over the farm from his ailing father, Perry never flew again. Today he lives in an RSL owned retirement village in Dubbo but he is no fan of war. He describes what he did as ‘horrifying’.
The service of Australians in Bomber Command during WW2 is considered to have been largely over-looked for many decades but was formally recognised in June 2012 with the unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial at Green Park in London by the Queen. It was attended by more than 100 Australian Bomber Command veterans, Jeffries Perry included.
For Perry, there has been ‘fair recognition’. Like many veterans, he is casual and almost off-hand about his experience. “We don’t talk about the war very much,” he says. “Except on ANZAC Day.”
“Oh, I’ve been invited to a few things. And we do the war veterans march on ANZAC Day and we wear our medals. And after the march we’ll go to the club and have lunch and a couple of beers… then we talk about it; but that’s really the only time,” he tells me.
Scoring a century
While it is the 100-year anniversary of Australia’s involvement in WWI, it is also the 100th anniversary of Jeffries Perry’s birth (31 May 1915) and preparations are underway for a ‘century celebration’ in Dubbo next month.
He has lived alone since his wife, Sybil passed away in 1999. He shops and cooks for himself most days. The short walk over to the Orana Mall to buy provisions is an almost daily form of exercise, in addition to his bowls games twice a week. And then there is the University of the Third Age for which he has classes two to three times a week. How does he get to classes? He drives of course.
Facing down the fuss of his own century he is pushed to think what the ‘secret’ might be to his long and productive life. He has survived prostate cancer and surgery and his very mild Type 2 diabetes has been managed easily with diet and exercise.
“I don’t think I do anything much different to other people,” he tells me. He smoked a packet of cigarettes a day until he was 75 and he’s ‘always had a drink’.
“Still do!” he says. “I have a generous nip – probably a double – of whisky every evening and I try to drink it slowly. I like the taste.”
“And I’ve never put on weight,” he muses, warming to the question. “I guess the thing is not to stop. You just keep going.”
The family property was sold nearly ten years ago now and one of his sons had run it for a number of years before then. But Jeff Perry still regularly worked the property, turning up in his overalls and overseeing the shearing with family and staff or checking fences on horse-back.
“Ooh, it’d be ten years since I was last on a horse,” he admits.
As for that party… “Everyone’s looking forward to it,” he says. “ The children and grandchildren etcetera.”
“I suppose it will involve drinking a bit of champagne too, so I probably won’t be able to drive,” he quips.
