Clive Caldwell biography launched.

[corsair67]

Might have to get myself a copy of this book and add it to my collection of unread books. So many books, so little time!


Killer read on WWII rebel ace
Mark Dodd
July 11, 2006.

AUSTRALIA'S most "unrecognised" military hero, the late World War II fighter ace Clive Robertson Caldwell, has been finally given his dues with the launch of an official biography.

One of the RAAF's most colourful characters, who nurtured a lifelong disdain of authority, Caldwell was recalled by his former comrades yesterday as as a courageous pilot filled with compassion for his victims.

He was credited with 28.5 kills in 300 sorties over North Africa and the Pacific theatre.

Born at Lewisham in Sydney and educated at nearby Trinity Grammar, Caldwell enlisted for the Empire Air Training Scheme when war broke out in 1939. Flying P-40 Tomahawks in the RAF's 250 Squadron in North Africa, he shot down 22 aircraft including 10 Messerschmitt 109s, two Italian Macchi C-202s and, on one day in 1941, five Stuka dive bombers.

He despised the nickname "Killer" Caldwell given him by a media hungry to promote a homegrown ace. In 1942, he took command of 1 Fighter Wing based in Darwin, where he shot down 6.5 Japanese aircraft.

Caldwell - who earned the DFC and Bar, DSO and Polish Cross of Valour - died in 1994 but earned the lasting animosity of service chiefs for his role in the so-called "Morotai Mutiny", in which he and other pilots refused to fly high-risk ground attack missions against Japanese positions of no military value in the closing stages of the war. He was charged but cleared and his rank reinstated. He also faced court martial for "grog running" in the Pacific Islands but was exonerated.

At the launch of Clive Caldwell - Air Ace by Kristen Alexander, Caldwell's former wingman Squadron Leader Bruce Watson, 91, remembered his comrade as a "remarkable pilot and a remarkable shot".

"Shooting for him was something that had to be studied, understood, and had to be an art. He believed in and practised shadow shooting on every possible opportunity," Mr Watson said. Shadow shooting was a type of high-risk aerial gunnery pioneered by Caldwell, using the shadow of his own aircraft or that of a colleague displayed on the surface of the sea or desert.

[planeimages]

Just into reading the copy my wife very kindly bought for me yesterday while I was out slaving away teaching people to flog cars around Wakefield Park on the HSRCA family day. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it!

Caldwell became an "Ace" in 18 seconds when he shot down five Stukas in a row. He missed the leader and collected the next two on the same burst.

Great read so far.

[Dave Homewood]

It sounds like an amazing book. I read a good review of it on the FlyPast Forum before Craig posted this one. See here:

forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=59783&highlight=caldwell

[corsair67]

I discovered on Friday that Kristen Alexander is based in Canberra! She runs a military bookstore here with her partner, David.

The website looks to have some pretty good books in stock, so here's the web address if anyone is interested -

www.alexanderfaxbooks.com.au/

[corsair67]

Here is a review published in The Weekend Australian on Saturday.


Clive Caldwell, Air Ace
Barry Oakley
August 19, 2006


Clive Caldwell, Air Ace
By Kristen Alexander
Allen & Unwin, 298pp, $35.

LATE one afternoon in April 1941, a Hindu palm reader approached four Australian pilots drinking at the bar of Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo. The quartet, who had travelled to the Middle East together and were soon to be posted to 250 Squadron RAF, accepted the offer. The palm reader, taking each aside in turn, told the first three what they already knew: they would soon see much action.
When he came to Clive Caldwell, however, the prediction was more disturbing: "Each of your friends will be killed while flying with you, and very soon. You will have harsh experiences and suffer wounds. But you will survive the war and live beyond 70 years."

He proved to be right on all counts. Two were shot down and the third, Donald Munro, was riddled with bullets by a German fighter as he swung from his parachute. In the unwritten lore of fighter pilots on both sides, this was simply not done, but it changed Caldwell's attitude for good: from then on, he was prepared to do the same; there was no place for chivalry in this war.

The squadron's job was to provide air support for the British and Australian forces battling Rommel's Afrika Korps, a task Caldwell took to with relish. Shooting down German and Italian aircraft with impressive regularity wasn't enough. If he had any bullets left, he'd go hunting for infantry at ground level with such effectiveness that he soon became known as "Killer" Caldwell.

He didn't care for the nickname and neither does Kristen Alexander, the author of this painstaking biography of the man who became Australia's top-scoring fighter pilot.

Nevertheless, in some of his letters home, an element of homicidal enjoyment does seem to creep in: "Flying at about 15 feet (4.5m) at 250mph (about 400km/h), I suddenly came upon two lorries. The crews jumped out and dived into the ditch at the roadside. I opened fire on the first truck and then suddenly another chap popped out of the second truck. I gave the rudder a touch and knocked him off like a ninepin. He fairly leapt into the air and came down flat on his back in the road!"

Though Caldwell might not have had a problem with the Germans, he sometimes did with his fellow pilots. As the exclamation mark at the end of his letter suggests, he enjoyed describing his adventures in the squadron mess, thus infringing unwritten principle No.2: don't go on about your exploits to your colleagues ("shooting a line", as it was then called). After one of his frequent aerial victories, Caldwell, in the words of the squadron historian, would come "clattering in flamboyantly, gesticulating as always, calling for a drink".

Still, he had plenty to gesticulate about. In an encounter that would become legendary, 12 fighters from 250 Squadron engaged about 40 Stuka dive bombers. The Stukas, slow and cumbersome, were unwisely flying in close formation. Caldwell's first burst accounted for two of them and his second got three more.

For this extraordinary achievement -- five in about 18 seconds of fire -- Caldwell was awarded a bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross, and the papers were exultant: "The 'Killer' Bags Five Axis Planes"; "Australia's Big Air Tally". The accompanying picture shows a tall, handsome figure with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a cigarette, looking as if he could beat the Luftwaffe on his own.

Alexander describes the feat as "perhaps the most brilliant air action of the desert campaign", but this honour in fact must go to Hans-Joachim Marseille, who in September 1942 shot down an incredible 17 RAF fighters in three sorties in a single day. Marseille, the most formidable fighter pilot of all time, died after the engine of his Messerschmitt seized up and he hit the tailplane as he baled out. By then he had destroyed 158 Allied aircraft, and he was only 22.

In November 1942, Caldwell, by then a highly decorated wing commander, was posted to 1Fighter Wing to take over the defence of Darwin. They had Spitfires instead of the obsolete Wirraways that had proved no match for the nimble Japanese Zeros and had sent many heroic RAAF pilots to their deaths. Thanks to Caldwell's leadership, however, the balance was redressed and his victory total reached 27 1/2, a record unmatched by any other Australian pilot.

But, like many natural leaders, he was impatient with authority and saw nothing wrong with selling off the stocks of liquor he'd managed to accumulate during his tour of duty. The practice was common at the time but it was illegal and in April 1945 he was charged with five breaches of the regulations.

Caldwell already held many of his superiors in contempt for what he saw as their spineless submission to the Americans (does this sound familiar?) on the island of Morotai (now part of Indonesia), where the RAAF was assigned a humiliatingly minor role. In what was to become known as the Morotai Mutiny, he joined seven other officers in requesting to resign their commissions in protest.

In the inquiry that followed, the judge found that, in the circumstances, the officers' actions were justified. However, the air force hadn't finished with Caldwell yet and proceeded with the court martial. He was found guilty of the charges (selling large quantities of liquor for profit) and demoted, much to the disgust of the public and the newspapers. Caldwell, showing the steel that made him a great fighter pilot, refused to appeal or complain and simply got on with his life in what must have seemed the undramatic business of import and export. When he died in Sydney in August 1994, the tributes poured in, but only now do we have one worthy of the man.

Barry Oakley is a novelist, playwright and former literary editor of The Australian.

[Stormbird262]

;DI MUST GET IT! ;D


I have been a fan of Clive for YONK"S, he was my type of Aussie!

I have read Killer Clive Caldwell by Jeffrey Watson, which I got me self for last Xmas, about twenty plus time's, and it goe's with me on long PT haul's, work's like magic to block out the riff raff.

I will put an order with my stepdaughter Ange, for that this year, last year she got me Matt Reilly's lastest.

To know why Auzzie Matt appeal's to ME see below!

(yes I'm an old Clive Cussler fan and DALE Brown, Craig Tomas, Eric.L.Harry, Patric Robbo, the list goe's on, it break's up all the Aircraft history book's a bit!, now and then). and don't get me started on Sci fi, Evolution or Dinosour's.)

Clive was a bit hard done by I reckon!

If you put me in the same room, as that " Marshmellow Jone's " ;D, I will have to be in a CAGE! (said by Clive some year's back, 60's I think)

I am yet to see a Spit done now in HIS marking's as yet!

Or did I miss it!!!

To you Clive Caldwell mate!

RIP mate