My Flying Boat War

Survival and Success over the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific in WW2

By WGCDR ‘Vic’ Hodgkinson with Richard Hodgkinson

Published by Big Sky Publishing
RRP $34.99 in Paperback | ISBN 9781923144699

Wing Commander Vic Hodgkinson DFC served as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) throughout WWII.

He was born in 1916 and passed away in 2010 but fortunately, in retirement, he had assembled the story of his life, intending it as a posthumous record for his descendants. It is from this material that his son Richard Hodgkinson has pieced together this first person memoir of a man with an extraordinary story to tell.

Starting in 1939, he was a founding member of 10 Squadron RAAF, operating Short Sunderland flying boats. Loaned to the RAF in early 1940, the squadron played a crucial role in the Battle of the Atlantic, conducting air-sea rescues and attacks on German submarines.

During this time, Vic participated in numerous air-sea rescues, including saving twenty-one survivors of a U-boat attack. He also conducted depth charge attacks on German submarines.

Vic’s resilience was tested when his Sunderland crashed into the Irish Sea near Bardsey Island in fog, resulting in the loss of six of his eleven crew members and a gruelling twelve-hour wait for rescue.

Later, he flew missions in the Mediterranean, enduring heavy enemy fire to support Allied troops in Crete.

Returning to the Atlantic, his crew successfully engaged a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor.

In 1942, Vic returned to Australia, serving with 20 and 40 Squadrons RAAF, flying various aircraft including the Catalina and Dornier Do 24. His missions ranged from supply drops and minelaying to bombing and reconnaissance.

At war’s end, as he was shuttled between desk jobs in the post-war RAAF, he decided he wasn’t cut out ‘to sit on my bum for the remainder of my life in the RAAF’. Instead he applied to the British Overseas Aircraft Corporation (BOAC) for a flying job on flying boats based in the UK. He was accepted in May 1946.

He had accumulated 4,347 hours flying for the RAAF. Of the fifty cadets with whom he joined at Point Cook in 1939, only around nine survived. He was part of a unique club – the Web Footers Club.

His civil aviation career was to last from 1946 to 1971, a span that traced the demise of flying boats to the introduction of the Boeing 707 into service. He was at the forefront of civil aviation development throughout this period.

In retirement, he put his skills to good use, spending many hours on the refurbishment of the Short Sandringham flying boat Beachcomber in Southampton’s Solent Sky Museum as well as contributing to maritime aviation books and expanding his collection of flying boat photographs and books.

VERDICT:

This is a fascinating first-hand, first person account of a dedicated RAAF pilot, enlivened by his easy straightforward style of storytelling and the extraordinary number of photographs from his private archive that have been included.

This is certainly a ‘must read’ for aviation enthusiasts, both military and civilian. His was the career many young boys of his generation no doubt dreamed of. He lived and breathed aviation his entire life, even into retirement with his voluntary work.

Highly recommended.