Violet Town, Barnes Wallis and a Mosquito
By Frank McMahon, Violet Town, Towners' Tales 1999
With such a cryptic title, I have first of all to explain my terms. Violet Town we all know as most of us live there. Older residents will almost certainly remember Barnes N. Wallis, but what of the younger generation? Probably the name means nothing to them. For the benefit of those not familiar with the name, I can state that Barnes Wallis was a famous British inventor during the Second World War. His most famous invention was the Bouncing Bomb, which, carried by Lancaster bombers, breached the walls of big German dams. This feat is commemorated in a book by Paul Brickhill called "The Dam Busters" and in a film of the same name based on the book.
What I did not know until recently was that Barnes N. Wallis modified this bouncing bomb for the de Havilland Mosquito, a fighter-bomber which could attack small targets with great accuracy. Light, made mainly of wood, with twin in-line engines, it was fast enough to escape the attention of enemy fighters. The operation of the Mosquito with the Barnes N. Wallis bomb was technically known as Operation Highball.
In 1934, as a skinny kid of eight years, I was part of a privileged crowd who saw the beautiful, red de Havilland Comet, crewed by Scott and Black, circle Flemington Racecourse in winning the Centenary Air Race which started in England and ended in Melbourne. In looking at this beautiful plane, I was seeing the forerunner of the de Havilland Mosquito.
About eleven years ago, I arrived in Violet Town, where one of my friends who knew I was interested in planes, told me that a war plane had crashed in Violet Town, disintegrating in Tom Maher's paddock and killing instantly the two crewmen.
"What sort of plane?" I asked him. "A Beaufort or a Beaufighter, I think," he said. "Anyhow", he continued "I can take you to the crash site."
A couple of days later he took me there. Even more than forty years after the crash, there was still a minor crater in the paddock. There were still some remnants of wreckage, the most important of which was part of an engine. It was immediately apparent to me that it was part of an in-line engine.
"It couldn't have been a Beaufort or a Beaufighter, because they both have Radial engines," I said to my friend. "Are you sure it was a twin engined plane?" "Yes." he replied. "Then I'm pretty sure it was a Mosquito," I said.
My next resort was to buy a book "Beaufighter, Beaufort and Mosquito in Australian Service" by Steward Wilson. Surely I would discover the fate of the plane in this book. The meticulously researched book gave the final destination of every Mosquito built in Australia. None had crashed at Violet Town. I didn't know as many Violet Townians at that time as I do now, but I questioned some of the older men I knew. Many of them had heard of a crash but most were still at war. a long way from Australia.
Someone told me to contact John Piper, an ex-pilot of Kittyhawks, who features in the documentary film, "Forty-four Days" which tells of a small flight of Kittyhawks taking on the might of the Japanese fighter planes in New Guinea. John also had heard of the crash but knew no details. However, he gave me the name of a man in Canberra who, he said, might be able to help. Hastily, I penned this man a letter, telling him of my dilemma. I had felt certain that the plane was a Mosquito, but the Australian publication seemed to negate this theory.
Born Barnes Neville Wallis 26 September 1887, Ripley, Derbyshire, England, died 30 October 1979 Effingham, Surrey, England, occupation scientist, engineer and inventor, known for inventing the bouncing bomb.
A few days later came elucidation of my quandary. Yes, it was a Mosquito that had crashed at Violet Town on the 19th June 1945, but it wasn't an Australian built Mosquito; it was an English built Mosquito. It was one of Barnes N. Wallis' Mosquitoes, a part of Operation Highball. But what was it doing in Australia? The Canberra man referred me to a book, "Mosquito Monograph" by David Vincent, and therein I found the solution to my riddle.
While the War was still being fought in the Pacific, the authorities in England decided to send to Australia, a number of Mosquitoes modified for Operation Highball with their highly trained crews. Their object was to assist the Americans in attacking Japanese shipping with the modified Bouncing Bomb, the invention of Barnes N. Wallis. The Mosquitoes were dismantled and carried by two aircraft carriers to Australia. Reassembled in Australia, they were preparing for action, when the Americans decided they were no longer needed. From page 189 of "Mosquito Monograph" comes this information. "On 19th June 1945, aircraft MK XVI NS 735 crashed in flames, killing Flying Officer, Ernest Bell, pilot, and Flight Lieutenant Edward Sillito, D.F.C., navigator, both of Squadron's C Flight, the Photographic Reconnaissance Flight. They had flown to R.A.A.F. Station, Laverton, Victoria, the previous day on liaison duties and were returning to Narromine when the crash occurred in Northern Victoria. Despite a Court of Enquiry into the incident, the cause of the crash could not be ascertained".
On Page 191 of the aforementioned book is a photograph of the crash site, underneath which is the caption:
"The crash site of PR MK XVI NS 735 in Northern Victoria photographed by the author on 25th September 1979. As an upshot of the incident, Squadron Leader Binks recommended that a Link Trainer should be made available to the unit for instrument flying training, but the Squadron was disbanded before anything concrete was done about it. The graves of Flying Officer Bell and Flight Lieutenant Sillito, DFC. Both of whom were originally from Staffordshire, are in the Benalla War Cemetery, which is located adjacent to the public cemetery on the opposite side of the road''.
When I first enquired about the crashed plane, 1 was temporarily amazed that nobody knew the type of plane that crashed. But later I realised that the crash having occurred in War time, the identity of the plane would then have been a closely guarded secret. By the time all War secrets were open knowledge, the story of the crashed plane had probably been forgotten by most people.
We should not forget that the Mosquitoes that came to Australia as part of Operation Highball were here to assist us in our hour of need. That that hour passed more quickly than we envisaged was just a happy accident of fate.
With the War close to its end, it was a terrible tragedy that the two young talented airmen of an elite squadron were killed in defence of our country at a time when they were probably anticipating a quick return to England.
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