The Significance of Australian Air Operations in Korea
This paper was written while I attended a six month imagery analysis course, in part because our Master program has been advised no one completed the course via a research thesis thesis. That was challenge enough.
The paper posits that the RAAF was so dismantled after WW2 that the Korean conflict represented a new foundation on which the modern RAAF was built. This was largely in part because the RAAF aircrew developed close ties with their American counterparts, relationships which in their senior appointments facilitated access to programs, technology, weapons and platforms. The paper also shows how the RAAF contribution significantly contributed to the advent of ANZUS.
A highlight of the research was to interview three of those officers – AVM Newham, AM Sir Neville McNamara and AVM Collings. In hindsight I should have pressed them harder but as. a then Flying Officer I was erring on polite. Sir Neville was a delight to interview and remains memorable for the interaction with him and his wife when I first met them. He answer the door to his home in Dickson and introduced his wife. I stumbled over the correct protocol for addressing Dame McNamara. She quickly told him off by telling him in no uncertain terms that we were not to have the interview in the house since he was likely to want to light up a cigar. We were to meet in the rose garden. He smiled, humble enough to acknowledge that we had both been reprimanded. The interview was a delight and he proved a generous contributor.
I have aspirations to revisit the subject and update it on the back of newly released archives.
Image by Ryan Fletcher