Tyler Redway
A World War Two pilot returned to Mount Gambier/Berrin this week to share his story with members of the Mount Gambier Aviation Museum in the hopes they can immortalise his story.
The Mount Gambier Aviation Museum has expressed interest in establishing a dedicated facility recounting the entire history of aviation in the Limestone Coast
Ian McCrae, a 101-year-old Second World War veteran, is one of the people who has shared his story of his time in Mount Gambier/Berrin as a flight sergeant in hopes it will be archived into the future museum.
Now living in Victoria, Mr McRae is believed to be the last surviving member of the Limestone Coast RAAF from the days of the Second World War.
Mr McRae enlisted at the age of 19 in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1943.
Mr McRae was unable to join an overseas pilot crew due to leaving school at age 14.
Instead, he trained at Narrandera in New South Wales and Point Cook in Victoria in order to join the local Limestone Coast base.
Mr McRae’s primary role was to train cadet navigators and observers at the Mount Gambier/Berrin RAAF base, which no longer exists, so they could be deployed overseas during the war.
Mr McRae said he wanted to join the RAAF due to the high threat of a Japanese invasion of Australia at the time, which affected his perception of the world.
“The main reason was the Japanese looked like they were going to invade Australia and there was no doubt about it at the time,” Mr McRae said.
“I lived on a farm and used to wake up in the middle of the night from dreams of Japanese soldiers coming across the paddocks, so it was very real.
“Just after the fall of Singapore, it really did look like it was going to happen.”
Compiling nearly 700 hours of total flight time, Mr McRae said he felt “lucky” to be able to stay in the local region rather than travel to the frontlines overseas.
“The fact I could do it was the main thing for me, once you learn it then it becomes like riding a bike and eventually comes naturally,” he said.
“If I put off leaving school for just a little while longer then I probably would have finished up flying bombers over Europe, so I think I’m lucky it turned out to be the other way around.”
Mr McRae flew a model of the Avro Anson during his time in Mount Gambier/Berrin, which was a British twin engine aircraft designed for a wide variety of roles during the Second World War.
Additionally, during his training in Narrandera and Point Cook, his travels saw him in the cockpits of Tiger Moths and Airspeed Oxford planes.
Mount Gambier Aviation Museum Head of Management and Governance Don Dyson said while looking into aviation history in the Victorian town of Nhill, members of the museum managed to source a contact for Mr McRaethrough the town’s aviation museum.
“As we were looking into the history, we went to Nhill because they started their museum several years ago,” Mr Dyson said.
“We thought we would tap into what they had done in establishing their museum and by pure chance, we heard of this fella who was a pilot living in Dimboola who flew in Mount Gambier.
“We wanted to make contact and go over to interview him but we thought why not bring him here and let him see the base, which has been stimulating his memories of what life was like here.”
Mr Dyson said it was extremely important to preserve the history of events such as the World Wars, especially when given the opportunity to learn from a veteran.
He said Mr McRae’s time in Mount Gambier/Berrin not only contributed to the history of the Second World War, but also the general history of the Limestone Coast itself.
“The RAAF base here was only one of two observer schools in all of Australia and Ian is probably the last remaining person we know of who actually worked on this base as a pilot to train the navigators and observers before they went to overseas deployments,” Mr Dyson said.
“To have someone who has the history and what life was like on this base is just absolute gold to us.
“It is almost like a living history, which fits in really well with what we are trying to do with our museum by trying to capture the entire history of aviation in this area.
“We have had a few people who flew during the war in the UK but this is someone who actually trained people at this very base so it is part of our local history.”
