Australia’s Aviation Heroes

True stories from our airmen at war

By Colin Burgess

Published by Simon & Schuster

RRP $36.99 in paperback

ISBN 9781761632495

This book had its unlikely origins in Colin Burgess’s stint as the editor of the Qantas cabin crew magazine Transit decades ago.

One of his editorial initiatives, with a colleague, was to put together a series of articles based on interviews with leading personalities from Australia’s aviation past.

Two of the articles featured interviews with Australians involved in the Dambusters squadron, which led to an earlier book, Australia’s Dambusters: Flying into Hell with 617 Squadron (Simon & Schuster Australia, 2021).

Using this material as the basis, Burgess has pieced together the wartime exploits of seven men who served from World War I to Korea, with the linking thread being aviation.

Some names will be familiar; others not so much:

• Jack Treacy: Australia’s Flying Picture Show Man
• Ernie Guest: Gallipoli and Beyond
• George ‘Scotty’ Allan: Our flying Scotsman
• Don Bennett: The man who led the Pathfinders
• Joe Hermann: A chance in a million
• Clive Caldwell: The fighter ace known as ‘Killer’
• Phillip Zupp: Serving in two very different wars

Jack Treacy, the WWI fighter pilot, came perilously close to joining the Red Baron in his grave.

Ernie Guest was determined to fly against all odds after storming into battle on the bloody shores of Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, on 25 April 1915.

George Allan, the Scottish-born pilot who survived that same war, went on to become one of the great pioneers in Australian aviation history.

Then there is the harrowing tale of Joe Herman, the bomber pilot blown out of his doomed aircraft over war-torn Europe without a parachute – who lived to tell his story.

We get to know Clive Caldwell, Australia’s greatest WWII fighter pilot, as well as Don Bennett, the Queenslander who developed and led Bomber Command’s legendary Pathfinder Force.

During the Korean War, Phillip Zupp was the first Australian to be recommended for a Purple Heart.

While all of the men have now passed on, Burgess was fortunate enough to interview many of them as part of his earlier research efforts. Their stories stayed with him.

This is a remarkable collection of inspiring stories that act as a reminder of how men are capable of extraordinary acts of bravery in extraordinary times.  Remarkable too are the photographs that accompany the stories, many from private collections that have not previously been published.

Colin Burgess

Colin Burgess was born in suburban Sydney in 1947. To date, he has written or co-authored nearly forty books, covering the Australian prisoner-of-war experience, aviation, and human space exploration. Colin still lives near Sydney with his wife Pat. They have two adult sons and three grandchildren.