Sir Richard Kingsland 1916-2012
Dickie Kingsland lived the sort of life that is generally only seen in Bogart movies. His exploits in the early RAAF years and throughout the Second World War demonstrated a legendary thirst for adventure and life, and of committment to public service. He died on August 27 as Sir Richard Kingsland.
Kingsland’s RAAF career should have ended the day he landed his Cirrus Moth at a country school, invited an attractive school teacher for a flight, and then flew back to Point Cook. At the time he was a trainee pilot with only 15 hours in his log book; if the instructors had found out he would almost certainly have been cut from the course.
Sporting a high disregard for authority, he continued with his exploits and was finally arrested for low flying. Charged with wilful defiance of authority he was confined to his room at Point Cook and fined five pounds.
The young tear-away Pilot Officer graduated with his wings in July 1936 with the lowest marks ever recorded for ‘officer qualities’.
Born in Moree on 19 October 1916, was among 33 young men who arrived at Point Cook in July 1935 to commence flying training. Dickie and his mates liked to indulge in boisterous behaviour, including midnight motorcycle races around the oval without helmets or protective clothing.
After graduation he was posted to Laverton on Bristol Bulldogs, where he was selected to join a three man aerobatic team. In 1938, in front of an estimated crowd of 170,000 at Flemington Race Course, Dickie not only performed with the aerobatic team, he also flew a Hawker Demon on an ‘instructional flight’ with ‘Cadet Simple’. In essence the Demon was flown with ‘reckless abandon’ replicating the skills of an incompetent student. The final manoeuvre consisted of a high speed dive where Dickie ‘took over the controls’ at the last moment from the student.
Instead of missing the ground by a few inches the Demon’s lower port mainplane clipped the track spraying tan bark over the wing. Dickie ruefully admitted he and his ‘student’ Pilot Officer Hocking should have died that day.
In 1938 he undertook a 12 day 10,800 km training flight around Australia in an Avro Anson which was later written up in the local press as the ‘most ambitious training flight undertaken’ in Australia. In March 1939 he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and posted to instruct at Point Cook. However, his skill as a navigator was noted and he was sent to England to pick up one of nine Short Sunderland flying boats for the newly-formed 10 Squadron.
Following familiarisation flights on Supermarine Southamptons the pilots were sent to Pembroke Dock to train on the four engined Sunderlands. World War II broke out sonn after and squadron members were informed that they would be the first Australians involved.
The squadron’s primary task was convoy protection. Patrols lasted upto 18 hours and the long periods of boredom were punctuated by moments of excitement if the crew spotted a German submarine or one of the long range Dorniers. On one sortie, Kingsland decided to make an unauthorised diversion to Brest where the Germans had a submarine base; he was met with a hostile reception. Although Coastal Command did not suffer the losses of Bomber or Fighter Command it still had its dangers. On return from one long sortie, Kingsland hit an island because of a poorly laid flare path and badly damaged his aircraft.
With experienced crews and a demonstrably safe aircraft, the 10 Squadron Sunderlands were often used for VIP flights. His most memorable was a flight to Morocco after France fell to the Germans. The VIPs were Lord Gort, the former Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and the British Minister of Information, Duff Cooper. The purpose of the visit was to try and encourage the North African French to side with the Allies.
“Unfortunately the authorities in Britain did not know the local French had decided to side with the pro-German Vichy,” Dickie noted. “In other words we were flying into enemy territory. I ended up landing in a narrow estuary but it soon became apparent we were not exactly welcome.Soon after the departure of the VIPs a coded message came through from London advising ‘they were aware of the local situation’. When I tried to reach the shore in an attempt to contact the VIPs I was headed off by a police boat and had to return. Eventually another craft approached with its occupants yelling out ‘Le blackout’. As the boat came alongside I stepped aboard with my first officer and immediately thrust my service revolver into the back of the senior fellow and requested he take us to shore – which he did. I was met by a staff member of the British Consulate who had been trying to pass on an urgent message. He was immediately surrounded by French police and kept away from us. With my fractured French they let me go and I headed for the Consulate followed by police cars.
"After an exchange of shots with the Police I eventually found Gort at the hotel. We were quickly arrested and taken to a locked room. I still had my pistol and blasted the lock apart. Naturally it attracted considerable attention and I shot two men advancing on us and raced to the exit with Gort. The police car with the driver was still there and I got in the front seat and jammed the revolver into his ribs telling him to drive us to the jetty. We all managed to get back on board but were quickly surrounded by police boats with armed crew. At dawn we fired up the four engines simultaneously and quickly taxied down the river hotly pursued by the police boats and made a precarious take off.”
In spite of a damaged float they reached Gibraltar safely. Before Gort left the aircraft he made the crew swear to secrecy over what had taken place – something to do with damaging the relationship with France. Two months later Kingsland was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for this exploit.
In 1941 Dickie was dispatched to New York aboard the Bayano, sailing in convoy with 50 other ships. Every night the German submarines torpedoed ships, and Kingsland was exposed to the sights and sounds of distressed sailors being dragged from the ocean, cold, injured, coated with oil and spewing sea water.
In New York Dickie was briefed in the High Commission and told he was to accompany an Australian Minister on a tour of aircraft factories, after which he was told he would pick up a Catalina and fly it to Australia. Again it was nearly his last. Adverse winds meant it took more than 24 hours to reach Honolulu with only enough fuel to fill the ‘Buick’s carburettor’!
Not ong after reachin Australia, he was sent up to Port Moresby and put in charge of 11 Squadron – his first command. Progressively more Cats arrived and when war broke out the squadron’s role from surveillance changed very quickly. As the Japanese moved south, the Cats were pressed into service as bombers while Empire flying boats evacuated planters, traders and missionaries. Up to three take-off runs could be needed required to get the grossly overloaded flying boats off the water.
In May 1942, Dickie was put in charge of the flying boat base at Rathmines and promoted to Wing Commander – his first non-operational appointment. During a visit to a nearby fighter base he spied a rather beautiful WAAAF officer and impulsively told his friend, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry!” He was right ... he and Kathleen Adams married in October 1943.
At age 27 he was promoted to Group Captain and took up the position of Director of Operational Training. A year later he was posted to Brisbane as Senior Intelligence Staff Officer at RAAF Command. Although the war was drawing to a close it was an important job with daily briefings required for Air Vice-Marshal Bostok and his American boss, Lieutenant General George Kenney. It was a demanding job and Dickie admitted he was close to a breakdown – he had been under severe stress for five years.
At the end of the war came a posting to Melbourne to head up the Intelligence branch before being appointed to Director of Organisation and Staff Duties. This involved assisting with the demobilisation of more than 150,000 airmen. Dickie avoided the cull of Group Captains and was even nominated for the Imperial Defence College (IDC) in London in 1947 at the age of 31. However, his nomination was blocked by the Secretary Department of Air.
After a dispute with Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Jones, Dickie took up the position as Airport Manager at Mascot in May 1948. A year later he was back in the air flying with TAA on a years leave before taking up a position as Regional Director of Civil Aviation in South Australia. Dickie was a superb leader and his skills as an administrator were quickly recognised by his boss, former Chief of the Air Staff and founder of the RAAF, Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams and he was sent to rationalise operations in Darwin.
He was soon back in the Air Force as Chief Administrative Assistant to Chief of the Air Staff. Because of his background he was able to ease the friction between the uniformed and civilian branches of the Department.
A job as Assistant Secretary Department of Civil Aviation was followed by First Assistant Secretary Department of Defence with the difficult task of integrating the three services. Finally he became a permanent head as Secretary Department of the Interior before a move to Veterans Affairs.
Sir Richard Kingsland AO, CBE, DFC died after a remarkably adventurous life as a pilot in World War 11, but he was also a gifted administrator which saw him rise to the most senior levels in the public service. Most recently, he was Patron of the Catalina Flying Memorial Ltd, a group restoring a Cat to airworthy in NSW.
- with material supplied by the Royal Australian Air Force