| Notes |
- Weekly Feature - 1 November 2003
A remarkable story finally shared with family
The death of John Austin-Smith, of Masterton, has brought to life th e p a st of a humble but quite extraordinary man. JOSEPH WALLACE spok e with h i s family and discovered the exceptional story of a wartim e hero. A sto r y filled with humour, intrigue, action and history.
DURING World War II, in September 1943, the Allied Navy captured the i s l and of Cos in the Aegean Sea. Not long after this success, pilot J ohn A u stin Henry Smith and the crew of squadron 267 delivered import ant back - up equipment and supplies to the battle-weary navy.
The squadron loaded their DC3s and left the Ramat David airport in Isr a e l, heading for the small island just off the southwest coast of Tu rkey . T he four unarmed supply planes slipped undetected through Turk ey’s ne ut ral south coast before Austin and his squadron landed succe ssfully at C o s airstrip. The four planes spread out over the aerodro me and unloaded t h e naval provisions. Austin finished and returned t o his cabin to prepa r e for the departing flight. He settled into th e cockpit and attempted t o s tart the motors. They refused to turn. T he only other option was to m a nually crank the motors from outside t he aircraft. He returned to the t a rmac and began cranking. That’s wh en he heard five Luftwaffe ME109 fig h ters.
The German fighters began a strafing run over the airstrip showering t h e i sland with enemy fire. Austin-Smith ran for cover, diving behin d a s ta ck of unidentified drums, soon discovering they were containe rs of fu e l.
He escaped the petrol explosion, but the attack left three planes utte r l y annihilated. Two were aflame, the other was riddled with bullets . Se v eral men, who were most likely known to Austin, were killed. Hi s crew a n d the surviving crew of the destroyed planes picked their f riends bodi e s from the tarmac and retreated to the only plane intact .
Austin quickly looked over his aircraft, checking for damage. He disco v e red the plane was hit. The left wing was shot through, resulting i n th e d amage of a foot-wide sheet of its structure. The German fight ers cou ld h ave returned at any time and Austin knew it was not saf e to linger. T h e lives of the remaining crews depended on the swif t departure of the s u rviving plane.
He acted fast. Leaving the tarmac, Austin climbed on to the wing and r i p ped the shot piece away and discarded it. The aircraft was loade d and e n gines cranked. Austin piloted his wounded DC3 away from th e damaged ai r strip and away from the carcasses of the other three pl anes. Once Aust i n had flown out of immediate danger, he returned t o the cabin to check h i s passengers. They were fine, playing cards a nd using their fallen com r ades as seats to make the journey more com fortable. Austin later repli e d to this thought: “Such is the way o f warfare.”
John Austin-Smith was known in Masterton for setting up Austins Pharma c y , which was situated in a building on a corner of Queen and Perr y stre e ts, now occupied by Sounds Music.
To locals he was a nice guy who was a keen golfer known as Austin. Aus t i n’s obituary stated - “NZ402474 RNZAF. 90 Squadron, 267 Squadron . Spec i al OPS, ME Order of the Crown of Yugoslavia 1942, DFC 1943. ” An extrao r dinary history to be briefly mapped out in a small colum n of the paper .
Inquiries led to a 30-page book.
Apparently Austin never mentioned the war. Until, aged 82, he was conv i n ced by his family to tell his experience and put it on paper. Wha t eve n tuated was titled Memories of an Airman. J.A.H. Austin-Smith . In it wa s r ecorded the career of a wartime hero as he told it. A s traightforwar d a nd simple account of Austin-Smith’s recollection o f his time in Worl d W ar II.
Austin grew up in Dannevirke. His family were poor and financially str e t ched through the Depression. His parents struggled to buy books an d un i forms for him to go to college. Money was in short supply and j obs sca r ce. Subsequently, when World War II broke out, it was an exc iting pros p ect for many young men, including a young Austin aged 19.
He applied for the air force and managed to join by telling a few whit e l i es. Austin said he almost missed out on the air force altogethe r becau s e his urine test failed. He immediately called upon his heal thier brot h er to help out and sent a second sample. His brother pass ed this test a n d Austin was in turn accepted in July 1940.
Over the next eight months he trained throughout New Zealand before h e a n d his friends were shipped away to Canada aboard SS Awatea. Aust in des c ribed the Awatea journey as “the life of luxury” where he wou ld enjoy “ f ive or six-course meals”. He liked it so much he said h e thought: “Wow , i f this is war, wiz oh, I’m all for it”. Over the n ext few months Aus ti n trained in Canada before he once again departe d, this time for Engl a nd. In England he was prepared as a pilot of t he RAF.
Austin continued training and was assigned to the new Liberator conver s i on unit, which was to be sent on a special operations job in the M iddl e E ast. He spent only five hours training in the Liberators befo re he a nd h is crew were sent on a long flight to a new base in Fayid . At the t ime , Greece and Yugoslavia lacked communications, the Alli es had no met eo rological or navigational information from the groun d in these countr i es, making flights over this airspace extremely da ngerous.
Austin and his squadron’s mission was to fly the two Liberators into t h e se fragile conditions dropping wireless operators, saboteurs and s uppl i es to the partisans who lived in the mountains of German-occupi ed Gree c e and Yugoslavia. It was a difficult ask as Liberators wer e 50-ton sup p ly planes only lightly armed and requiring a lot of pet rol for the lon g f lights from Fayid to Yugoslavia and back. They ha d to pack as much e qu ipment and men on each flight as possible. Cons equently the planes we r e stripped of non-essential weight - 95 perce nt of the ammunition was d i scarded, leaving only 100 rounds in the r ear gun turret. Austin said: “ W e were flying all night over enemy te rritory in aircraft that were lit e rally defenceless. It was a cat-an d-mouse operation.”
The Liberator crews had to be elusive and get out of enemy territory b y d a ybreak or they were prime targets. But the enemy wasn’t the onl y dange r . One particular night Austin flew into cloud that was ful l of “severe i c ing” over the Aegean Sea. The Liberator’s instrument s immediately froz e a nd he became disorientated in the thick cloud . He was unaware of his a l titude and unsure if he was going straigh t or off course. Although the a u topilot was on, Austin said his inst inct was to take the stick and alt e r its level. But this action coul d be deadly. Instead, Austin refused t h e itch to grab the controls a nd stood up from his seat to feel the sit u ation. Everything felt nor mal, so he waited it out while de-icing heat e rs kicked in. It remain ed this way for some minutes for what must have b e en an eternity. Ev entually the instruments came back after an intensel y -nervous wait f or Austin in his blind, drifting aircraft.
Despite numerous dangers including the weather, anti-aircraft ground f i r e and enemy fighters, Austin wrote: “The thing that caused us th e most c o ncern was a bloody star! Venus!”. It was often mistaken fo r an enemy p l ane. Austin said he knew of some gunners shooting of f a few precaution a ry rounds at the planet, just in case.
Eventually, after numerous trips, wireless communication enabled the L i b erators to receive weather forecasts and news of the success of th eir d r ops. The flights were known to be some of the most arduous fli ghts und e r extremely difficult conditions. Austin finished these ope rations wit h 4 46 hours of flying. He flew 19 trips to Yugoslavia an d 13 drops into G r eece.
In recognition for the flights into Yugoslavia Austin was awarded th e O r der of the Crown of Yugoslavia on October 20, 1942. This was fol lowed w i th one of the highest honours awarded to pilots, the Disting uished Fly i ng Cross.
Austin and his crew were taken off transport duty in October 1943. Th e o d ds must have been in his favour as he was still alive after thi s exten s ive period - of the 56 men he trained with during the earl y stage of t h e war in Canada, only 15 returned home. Perhaps a littl e luck was on h i s side. “Fate played strange tricks in those weird d ays,” he said.
Austin was assigned to instructing other pilots how to fly large trans p o rt planes. During the course of one morning Austin finished up ins truc t ing another pilot in a Liberator. He finished the lesson and la nded fo r b reakfast. His good friend, Squadron Leader Rolph-Smith, to ok over th e j ob and took the Liberator up for another lesson. Durin g the plane’s f i rst circuit it struck a Hurricane that was coming in to land, it sliced o f f the Liberator’s tail. “All were killed instan tly.” Austin returned t o f ind he was promoted to squadron leader.
Despite the war and all the experiences that came with it, Austin’s Me m o ries are filled with amusing moments. One is when his good frien d thro u ghout the war, Jacko Madill, sent Christmas correspondence t o his fath e r expressing that he was in need of money. His father rep lied by sendi n g him a Christmas cake that hid the only reliable curr ency at the time - g o ld sovereigns.
Unfortunately, Jacko’s aunts were also keen to help their nephew’s wa r e f fort. In which case several cakes arrived for Jacko courtesy o f his do t ing aunties. The mass of cakes camouflaged the true identit y of the “r i chest cake”. Austin was called on and together they hack ed up several C h ristmas cakes until they struck gold.
The war ended in August 1944 and Austin was posted home. He wrote of o n e o f his last experiences - it happened as he was getting ready t o retu rn t o New Zealand. “ I’d finished for the day, was packing u p to go hom e a nd watching the Liberators coming in to land, at night . Thought that b l oke’s low! He was, the next second , CRASH and flam es. So into my litt l e ute, tore up the road about a quarter mile, ra n across a paddock and h e lped pull one guy away from the burning wre ck. He’d hit something, had n o r oof to his mouth and of course no te eth. And boy, was he hot. The am bu lance arrived, popped him in an d I sat on his tummy all the way to ho s pital trying to dig his teet h out of his throat every time he choked. O f ten wonder what happene d to him. Poor devil.”
The next day Austin left for home. He returned via Morocco to Britain , o n t o the Queen Mary, which shipped him to New York where he remai ned fo r s ix weeks before training across America to San Francisco, t hen on a b o at to Noumea before reaching New Zealand.
John Austin-Smith left his home town at the age of 19. He travelled th e w o rld and experienced the highs and lows of war, and the comradesh ips th a t were made and lost. He said the memories he made lived in h im foreve r : “They are events I will never forget and experiences an d friendships o n ly war can provide”. He returned home a humble, deco rated hero. As a w a rtime pilot he amassed a total of 1715 flying hou rs. John Austin-Smith p a ssed away last month aged 83.
-- MERGED NOTE ------------
Weekly Feature - 1 November 2003
A remarkable story finally shared with family
The death of John Austin-Smith, of Masterton, has brought to life thep a s t of a humble but quite extraordinary man. JOSEPH WALLACE spoke wi th h i s family and discovered the exceptional story of a wartime hero .A stor y f illed with humour, intrigue, action and history.
DURING World War II, in September 1943, the Allied Navy captured the i s l and of Cos in the Aegean Sea. Not long after this success, pilot J ohn A u stin Henry Smith and the crew of squadron 267 delivered import antback- u p equipment and supplies to the battle-weary navy.
The squadron loaded their DC3s and left the Ramat David airport in Isr a e l, heading for the small island just off the southwest coast of Tu rkey . T he four unarmed supply planes slipped undetected through Turk ey’s ne ut ral south coast before Austin and his squadron landed succe ssfully at C o s airstrip. The four planes spread out over the aerodro me andunloaded t h e naval provisions. Austin finished and returned t o his cabin to prepa r e for the departing flight. He settled into th e cockpit and attempted t o s tart the motors. They refused to turn. T he only otheroption was to m an ually crank the motors from outside th e aircraft. Hereturned to the t a rmac and began cranking. That’s whe n he heard five Luftwaffe ME109 fig h ters.
The German fighters began a strafing run over the airstrip showering t h e i sland with enemy fire. Austin-Smith ran for cover, diving behind a st ac k of unidentified drums, soon discovering they were container s of fue l .
He escaped the petrol explosion, but the attack left three planes utte r l y annihilated. Two were aflame, the other was riddled with bullets .Sev e ral men, who were most likely known to Austin, were killed. Hi s crew a n d the surviving crew of the destroyed planes picked their f riends bodi e s from the tarmac and retreated to the only plane intact .
Austin quickly looked over his aircraft, checking for damage. He disco v e red the plane was hit. The left wing was shot through, resulting i nthe d a mage of a foot-wide sheet of its structure. The German fighte rscould h a ve returned at any time and Austin knew it was not safe t o linger. The l i ves of the remaining crews depended on the swift dep artureof the survi v ing plane.
He acted fast. Leaving the tarmac, Austin climbed on to the wing and r i p ped the shot piece away and discarded it. The aircraft was loade d and e n gines cranked. Austin piloted his wounded DC3 away from th e damaged ai r strip and away from the carcasses of the other three pl anes. Once Aust i n had flown out of immediate danger, he returned t o the cabin to check h i s passengers. They were fine, playing cards a nd using theirfallen comr a des as seats to make the journey more comf ortable. Austinlater replied t o t his thought: “Such is the way of wa rfare.”
John Austin-Smith was known in Masterton for setting up Austins Pharma c y , which was situated in a building on a corner of Queen and Perr y stre e ts, now occupied by Sounds Music.
To locals he was a nice guy who was a keen golfer known as Austin. Aus t i n’s obituary stated - “NZ402474 RNZAF. 90 Squadron, 267 Squadron . Spec i al OPS, ME Order of the Crown of Yugoslavia 1942, DFC 1943. ” An extrao r dinary history to be briefly mapped out in a small colum n of the paper .
Inquiries led to a 30-page book.
Apparently Austin never mentioned the war. Until, aged 82, he was conv i n ced by his family to tell his experience and put it on paper. Wha t eve n tuated was titled Memories of an Airman. J.A.H. Austin-Smith . In it wa s r ecorded the career of a wartime hero as he told it. A s traightforwar d a nd simple account of Austin-Smith’s recollection o f his time in Worl d W ar II.
Austin grew up in Dannevirke. His family were poor and financially str e t ched through the Depression. His parents struggled to buy books an duni f orms for him to go to college. Money was in short supply and jo bsscarc e . Subsequently, when World War II broke out, it was an excit ingprospec t f or many young men, including a young Austin aged 19.
He applied for the air force and managed to join by telling a few whit e l i es. Austin said he almost missed out on the air force altogethe r becau s e his urine test failed. He immediately called upon his heal thier brot h er to help out and sent a second sample. His brother pass ed this test a n d Austin was in turn accepted in July 1940.
Over the next eight months he trained throughout New Zealand before h e a n d his friends were shipped away to Canada aboard SS Awatea. Aust in des c ribed the Awatea journey as “the life of luxury” where he wou ldenjoy “ f ive or six-course meals”. He liked it so much he said he t hought: “Wow , i f this is war, wiz oh, I’m all for it”. Over the nex t few months Aus ti n trained in Canada before he once again departed , this time for Engl a nd. In England he was prepared as a pilot of th e RAF.
Austin continued training and was assigned to the new Liberator conver s i on unit, which was to be sent on a special operations job in the M iddl e E ast. He spent only five hours training in the Liberators befo re he a nd h is crew were sent on a long flight to a new base in Fayid . At the t ime , Greece and Yugoslavia lacked communications, the Alli es had no met eo rological or navigational information from the groun d in thesecountri e s, making flights over this airspace extremely dan gerous.
Austin and his squadron’s mission was to fly the two Liberators into t h e se fragile conditions dropping wireless operators, saboteurs and s uppl i es to the partisans who lived in the mountains of German-occupi ed Gree c e and Yugoslavia. It was a difficult ask as Liberators wer e 50-ton sup p ly planes only lightly armed and requiring a lot of pet rol for the lon g f lights from Fayid to Yugoslavia and back. They ha d to pack as much e qu ipment and men on each flight as possible. Cons equently theplanes wer e s tripped of non-essential weight - 95 percen t of the ammunition was d is carded, leaving only 100 rounds in the re ar gun turret. Austin said: “ W e were flying all night over enemy ter ritory in aircraft that were lit e rally defenceless. It was a cat-and -mouse operation.”
The Liberator crews had to be elusive and get out of enemy territory b y d a ybreak or they were prime targets. But the enemy wasn’t the onl y dange r . One particular night Austin flew into cloud that was ful l of “severe i c ing” over the Aegean Sea. The Liberator’s instrument s immediately froz e a nd he became disorientated in the thick cloud . He was unaware of his a l titude and unsure if he was going straigh t or off course.Although the a u topilot was on, Austin said his insti nct was to take the stick and alt e r its level. But this action coul d be deadly. Instead, Austin refused t h e itch to grab the controls a nd stood up from his seat to feel the sit u ation. Everything felt nor mal, so he waited it out while de-icing heat e rs kicked in. It remain ed this way for some minutes for what must have b e en an eternity. Ev entually the instruments came back after an intensel y -nervous wait f or Austin in his blind, drifting aircraft.
Despite numerous dangers including the weather, anti-aircraft ground f i r e and enemy fighters, Austin wrote: “The thing that caused us th e most c o ncern was a bloody star! Venus!”. It was often mistaken fo r an enemy p l ane. Austin said he knew of some gunners shooting of f a few precaution a ry rounds at the planet, just in case.
Eventually, after numerous trips, wireless communication enabled the L i b erators to receive weather forecasts and news of the success of th eir d r ops. The flights were known to be some of the most arduous fli ghts und e r extremely difficult conditions. Austin finished these ope rations wit h 4 46 hours of flying. He flew 19 trips to Yugoslavia an d 13 drops into G r eece.
In recognition for the flights into Yugoslavia Austin was awarded theO r d er of the Crown of Yugoslavia on October 20, 1942. This was follow ed w i th one of the highest honours awarded to pilots, the Distinguis hed Fly i ng Cross.
Austin and his crew were taken off transport duty in October 1943. Th e o d ds must have been in his favour as he was still alive after thi s exten s ive period - of the 56 men he trained with during the earl y stage of t h e war in Canada, only 15 returned home. Perhaps a littl e luck was on h i s side. “Fate played strange tricks in those weird d ays,” he said.
Austin was assigned to instructing other pilots how to fly large trans p o rt planes. During the course of one morning Austin finished up ins truc t ing another pilot in a Liberator. He finished the lesson and la nded fo r b reakfast. His good friend, Squadron Leader Rolph-Smith, to ok over th e j ob and took the Liberator up for another lesson. Durin g the plane’s f i rst circuit it struck a Hurricane that was coming in to land, it sliced o f f the Liberator’s tail. “All were killed instan tly.” Austin returned t o f ind he was promoted to squadron leader.
Despite the war and all the experiences that came with it, Austin’s Me m o ries are filled with amusing moments. One is when his good frien d thro u ghout the war, Jacko Madill, sent Christmas correspondence t o his fath e r expressing that he was in need of money. His father rep lied by sendi n g him a Christmas cake that hid the only reliable curr ency at the time - g o ld sovereigns.
Unfortunately, Jacko’s aunts were also keen to help their nephew’s wa r e f fort. In which case several cakes arrived for Jacko courtesy o f his do t ing aunties. The mass of cakes camouflaged the true identit y of the “r i chest cake”. Austin was called on and together they hack ed up several C h ristmas cakes until they struck gold.
The war ended in August 1944 and Austin was posted home. He wrote of o n e o f his last experiences - it happened as he was getting ready t o retu rn t o New Zealand. “ I’d finished for the day, was packing u p to gohome a n d watching the Liberators coming in to land, at night . Thoughtthat blo k e’s low! He was, the next second , CRASH and flame s. So intomy little u t e, tore up the road about a quarter mile, ra n across a paddock and hel p ed pull one guy away from the burning wre ck. He’d hit something, had n o r oof to his mouth and of course no te eth. And boy, washe hot. The amb ul ance arrived, popped him in an d I sat on his tummy all the way to hos p ital trying to dig his teet h out of his throat everytime he choked. Of t en wonder what happene d to him. Poor devil.”
The next day Austin left for home. He returned via Morocco to Britain , o n t o the Queen Mary, which shipped him to New York where he remai ned fo r s ix weeks before training across America to San Francisco, t henon a b oa t to Noumea before reaching New Zealand.
John Austin-Smith left his home town at the age of 19. He travelled th e w o rld and experienced the highs and lows of war, and the comradesh ips th a t were made and lost. He said the memories he made lived in h im foreve r : “They are events I will never forget and experiences an d friendships o n ly war can provide”. He returned home a humble, deco rated hero. As a w a rtime pilot he amassed a total of 1715 flying hou rs. John Austin-Smith p a ssed away last month aged 83.
Weekly Feature - 1 November 2003
A remarkable story finally shared with family
The death of John Austin-Smith, of Masterton, has brought to life th e p a st of a humble but quite extraordinary man. JOSEPH WALLACE spok e with h i s family and discovered the exceptional story of a wartim e hero. A sto r y filled with humour, intrigue, action and history.
DURING World War II, in September 1943, the Allied Navy captured the i s l and of Cos in the Aegean Sea. Not long after this success, pilot J ohn A u stin Henry Smith and the crew of squadron 267 delivered import ant back - up equipment and supplies to the battle-weary navy.
The squadron loaded their DC3s and left the Ramat David airport in Isr a e l, heading for the small island just off the southwest coast of Tu rkey . T he four unarmed supply planes slipped undetected through Turk ey’s ne ut ral south coast before Austin and his squadron landed succe ssfully at C o s airstrip. The four planes spread out over the aerodro me and unloaded t h e naval provisions. Austin finished and returned t o his cabin to prepa r e for the departing flight. He settled into th e cockpit and attempted t o s tart the motors. They refused to turn. T he only other option was to m a nually crank the motors from outside t he aircraft. He returned to the t a rmac and began cranking. That’s wh en he heard five Luftwaffe ME109 fig h ters.
The German fighters began a strafing run over the airstrip showering t h e i sland with enemy fire. Austin-Smith ran for cover, diving behin d a s ta ck of unidentified drums, soon discovering they were containe rs of fu e l.
He escaped the petrol explosion, but the attack left three planes utte r l y annihilated. Two were aflame, the other was riddled with bullets . Se v eral men, who were most likely known to Austin, were killed. Hi s crew a n d the surviving crew of the destroyed planes picked their f riends bodi e s from the tarmac and retreated to the only plane intact .
Austin quickly looked over his aircraft, checking for damage. He disco v e red the plane was hit. The left wing was shot through, resulting i n th e d amage of a foot-wide sheet of its structure. The German fight ers cou ld h ave returned at any time and Austin knew it was not saf e to linger. T h e lives of the remaining crews depended on the swif t departure of the s u rviving plane.
He acted fast. Leaving the tarmac, Austin climbed on to the wing and r i p ped the shot piece away and discarded it. The aircraft was loade d and e n gines cranked. Austin piloted his wounded DC3 away from th e damaged ai r strip and away from the carcasses of the other three pl anes. Once Aust i n had flown out of immediate danger, he returned t o the cabin to check h i s passengers. They were fine, playing cards a nd using their fallen com r ades as seats to make the journey more com fortable. Austin later repli e d to this thought: “Such is the way o f warfare.”
John Austin-Smith was known in Masterton for setting up Austins Pharma c y , which was situated in a building on a corner of Queen and Perr y stre e ts, now occupied by Sounds Music.
To locals he was a nice guy who was a keen golfer known as Austin. Aus t i n’s obituary stated - “NZ402474 RNZAF. 90 Squadron, 267 Squadron . Spec i al OPS, ME Order of the Crown of Yugoslavia 1942, DFC 1943. ” An extrao r dinary history to be briefly mapped out in a small colum n of the paper .
Inquiries led to a 30-page book.
Apparently Austin never mentioned the war. Until, aged 82, he was conv i n ced by his family to tell his experience and put it on paper. Wha t eve n tuated was titled Memories of an Airman. J.A.H. Austin-Smith . In it wa s r ecorded the career of a wartime hero as he told it. A s traightforwar d a nd simple account of Austin-Smith’s recollection o f his time in Worl d W ar II.
Austin grew up in Dannevirke. His family were poor and financially str e t ched through the Depression. His parents struggled to buy books an d un i forms for him to go to college. Money was in short supply and j obs sca r ce. Subsequently, when World War II broke out, it was an exc iting pros p ect for many young men, including a young Austin aged 19.
He applied for the air force and managed to join by telling a few whit e l i es. Austin said he almost missed out on the air force altogethe r becau s e his urine test failed. He immediately called upon his heal thier brot h er to help out and sent a second sample. His brother pass ed this test a n d Austin was in turn accepted in July 1940.
Over the next eight months he trained throughout New Zealand before h e a n d his friends were shipped away to Canada aboard SS Awatea. Aust in des c ribed the Awatea journey as “the life of luxury” where he wou ld enjoy “ f ive or six-course meals”. He liked it so much he said h e thought: “Wow , i f this is war, wiz oh, I’m all for it”. Over the n ext few months Aus ti n trained in Canada before he once again departe d, this time for Engl a nd. In England he was prepared as a pilot of t he RAF.
Austin continued training and was assigned to the new Liberator conver s i on unit, which was to be sent on a special operations job in the M iddl e E ast. He spent only five hours training in the Liberators befo re he a nd h is crew were sent on a long flight to a new base in Fayid . At the t ime , Greece and Yugoslavia lacked communications, the Alli es had no met eo rological or navigational information from the groun d in these countr i es, making flights over this airspace extremely da ngerous.
Austin and his squadron’s mission was to fly the two Liberators into t h e se fragile conditions dropping wireless operators, saboteurs and s uppl i es to the partisans who lived in the mountains of German-occupi ed Gree c e and Yugoslavia. It was a difficult ask as Liberators wer e 50-ton sup p ly planes only lightly armed and requiring a lot of pet rol for the lon g f lights from Fayid to Yugoslavia and back. They ha d to pack as much e qu ipment and men on each flight as possible. Cons equently the planes we r e stripped of non-essential weight - 95 perce nt of the ammunition was d i scarded, leaving only 100 rounds in the r ear gun turret. Austin said: “ W e were flying all night over enemy te rritory in aircraft that were lit e rally defenceless. It was a cat-an d-mouse operation.”
The Liberator crews had to be elusive and get out of enemy territory b y d a ybreak or they were prime targets. But the enemy wasn’t the onl y dange r . One particular night Austin flew into cloud that was ful l of “severe i c ing” over the Aegean Sea. The Liberator’s instrument s immediately froz e a nd he became disorientated in the thick cloud . He was unaware of his a l titude and unsure if he was going straigh t or off course. Although the a u topilot was on, Austin said his inst inct was to take the stick and alt e r its level. But this action coul d be deadly. Instead, Austin refused t h e itch to grab the controls a nd stood up from his seat to feel the sit u ation. Everything felt nor mal, so he waited it out while de-icing heat e rs kicked in. It remain ed this way for some minutes for what must have b e en an eternity. Ev entually the instruments came back after an intensel y -nervous wait f or Austin in his blind, drifting aircraft.
Despite numerous dangers including the weather, anti-aircraft ground f i r e and enemy fighters, Austin wrote: “The thing that caused us th e most c o ncern was a bloody star! Venus!”. It was often mistaken fo r an enemy p l ane. Austin said he knew of some gunners shooting of f a few precaution a ry rounds at the planet, just in case.
Eventually, after numerous trips, wireless communication enabled the L i b erators to receive weather forecasts and news of the success of th eir d r ops. The flights were known to be some of the most arduous fli ghts und e r extremely difficult conditions. Austin finished these ope rations wit h 4 46 hours of flying. He flew 19 trips to Yugoslavia an d 13 drops into G r eece.
In recognition for the flights into Yugoslavia Austin was awarded th e O r der of the Crown of Yugoslavia on October 20, 1942. This was fol lowed w i th one of the highest honours awarded to pilots, the Disting uished Fly i ng Cross.
Austin and his crew were taken off transport duty in October 1943. Th e o d ds must have been in his favour as he was still alive after thi s exten s ive period - of the 56 men he trained with during the earl y stage of t h e war in Canada, only 15 returned home. Perhaps a littl e luck was on h i s side. “Fate played strange tricks in those weird d ays,” he said.
Austin was assigned to instructing other pilots how to fly large trans p o rt planes. During the course of one morning Austin finished up ins truc t ing another pilot in a Liberator. He finished the lesson and la nded fo r b reakfast. His good friend, Squadron Leader Rolph-Smith, to ok over th e j ob and took the Liberator up for another lesson. Durin g the plane’s f i rst circuit it struck a Hurricane that was coming in to land, it sliced o f f the Liberator’s tail. “All were killed instan tly.” Austin returned t o f ind he was promoted to squadron leader.
Despite the war and all the experiences that came with it, Austin’s Me m o ries are filled with amusing moments. One is when his good frien d thro u ghout the war, Jacko Madill, sent Christmas correspondence t o his fath e r expressing that he was in need of money. His father rep lied by sendi n g him a Christmas cake that hid the only reliable curr ency at the time - g o ld sovereigns.
Unfortunately, Jacko’s aunts were also keen to help their nephew’s wa r e f fort. In which case several cakes arrived for Jacko courtesy o f his do t ing aunties. The mass of cakes camouflaged the true identit y of the “r i chest cake”. Austin was called on and together they hack ed up several C h ristmas cakes until they struck gold.
The war ended in August 1944 and Austin was posted home. He wrote of o n e o f his last experiences - it happened as he was getting ready t o retu rn t o New Zealand. “ I’d finished for the day, was packing u p to go hom e a nd watching the Liberators coming in to land, at night . Thought that b l oke’s low! He was, the next second , CRASH and flam es. So into my litt l e ute, tore up the road about a quarter mile, ra n across a paddock and h e lped pull one guy away from the burning wre ck. He’d hit something, had n o r oof to his mouth and of course no te eth. And boy, was he hot. The am bu lance arrived, popped him in an d I sat on his tummy all the way to ho s pital trying to dig his teet h out of his throat every time he choked. O f ten wonder what happene d to him. Poor devil.”
The next day Austin left for home. He returned via Morocco to Britain , o n t o the Queen Mary, which shipped him to New York where he remai ned fo r s ix weeks before training across America to San Francisco, t hen on a b o at to Noumea before reaching New Zealand.
John Austin-Smith left his home town at the age of 19. He travelled th e w o rld and experienced the highs and lows of war, and the comradesh ips th a t were made and lost. He said the memories he made lived in h im foreve r : “They are events I will never forget and experiences an d friendships o n ly war can provide”. He returned home a humble, deco rated hero. As a w a rtime pilot he amassed a total of 1715 flying hou rs. John Austin-Smith p a ssed away last month aged 83.
-- MERGED NOTE ------------
Weekly Feature - 1 November 2003
A remarkable story finally shared with family
The death of John Austin-Smith, of Masterton, has brought to life thep a s t of a humble but quite extraordinary man. JOSEPH WALLACE spoke wi th h i s family and discovered the exceptional story of a wartime hero .A stor y f illed with humour, intrigue, action and history.
DURING World War II, in September 1943, the Allied Navy captured the i s l and of Cos in the Aegean Sea. Not long after this success, pilot J ohn A u stin Henry Smith and the crew of squadron 267 delivered import antback- u p equipment and supplies to the battle-weary navy.
The squadron loaded their DC3s and left the Ramat David airport in Isr a e l, heading for the small island just off the southwest coast of Tu rkey . T he four unarmed supply planes slipped undetected through Turk ey’s ne ut ral south coast before Austin and his squadron landed succe ssfully at C o s airstrip. The four planes spread out over the aerodro me andunloaded t h e naval provisions. Austin finished and returned t o his cabin to prepa r e for the departing flight. He settled into th e cockpit and attempted t o s tart the motors. They refused to turn. T he only otheroption was to m an ually crank the motors from outside th e aircraft. Hereturned to the t a rmac and began cranking. That’s whe n he heard five Luftwaffe ME109 fig h ters.
The German fighters began a strafing run over the airstrip showering t h e i sland with enemy fire. Austin-Smith ran for cover, diving behind a st ac k of unidentified drums, soon discovering they were container s of fue l .
He escaped the petrol explosion, but the attack left three planes utte r l y annihilated. Two were aflame, the other was riddled with bullets .Sev e ral men, who were most likely known to Austin, were killed. Hi s crew a n d the surviving crew of the destroyed planes picked their f riends bodi e s from the tarmac and retreated to the only plane intact .
Austin quickly looked over his aircraft, checking for damage. He disco v e red the plane was hit. The left wing was shot through, resulting i nthe d a mage of a foot-wide sheet of its structure. The German fighte rscould h a ve returned at any time and Austin knew it was not safe t o linger. The l i ves of the remaining crews depended on the swift dep artureof the survi v ing plane.
He acted fast. Leaving the tarmac, Austin climbed on to the wing and r i p ped the shot piece away and discarded it. The aircraft was loade d and e n gines cranked. Austin piloted his wounded DC3 away from th e damaged ai r strip and away from the carcasses of the other three pl anes. Once Aust i n had flown out of immediate danger, he returned t o the cabin to check h i s passengers. They were fine, playing cards a nd using theirfallen comr a des as seats to make the journey more comf ortable. Austinlater replied t o t his thought: “Such is the way of wa rfare.”
John Austin-Smith was known in Masterton for setting up Austins Pharma c y , which was situated in a building on a corner of Queen and Perr y stre e ts, now occupied by Sounds Music.
To locals he was a nice guy who was a keen golfer known as Austin. Aus t i n’s obituary stated - “NZ402474 RNZAF. 90 Squadron, 267 Squadron . Spec i al OPS, ME Order of the Crown of Yugoslavia 1942, DFC 1943. ” An extrao r dinary history to be briefly mapped out in a small colum n of the paper .
Inquiries led to a 30-page book.
Apparently Austin never mentioned the war. Until, aged 82, he was conv i n ced by his family to tell his experience and put it on paper. Wha t eve n tuated was titled Memories of an Airman. J.A.H. Austin-Smith . In it wa s r ecorded the career of a wartime hero as he told it. A s traightforwar d a nd simple account of Austin-Smith’s recollection o f his time in Worl d W ar II.
Austin grew up in Dannevirke. His family were poor and financially str e t ched through the Depression. His parents struggled to buy books an duni f orms for him to go to college. Money was in short supply and jo bsscarc e . Subsequently, when World War II broke out, it was an excit ingprospec t f or many young men, including a young Austin aged 19.
He applied for the air force and managed to join by telling a few whit e l i es. Austin said he almost missed out on the air force altogethe r becau s e his urine test failed. He immediately called upon his heal thier brot h er to help out and sent a second sample. His brother pass ed this test a n d Austin was in turn accepted in July 1940.
Over the next eight months he trained throughout New Zealand before h e a n d his friends were shipped away to Canada aboard SS Awatea. Aust in des c ribed the Awatea journey as “the life of luxury” where he wou ldenjoy “ f ive or six-course meals”. He liked it so much he said he t hought: “Wow , i f this is war, wiz oh, I’m all for it”. Over the nex t few months Aus ti n trained in Canada before he once again departed , this time for Engl a nd. In England he was prepared as a pilot of th e RAF.
Austin continued training and was assigned to the new Liberator conver s i on unit, which was to be sent on a special operations job in the M iddl e E ast. He spent only five hours training in the Liberators befo re he a nd h is crew were sent on a long flight to a new base in Fayid . At the t ime , Greece and Yugoslavia lacked communications, the Alli es had no met eo rological or navigational information from the groun d in thesecountri e s, making flights over this airspace extremely dan gerous.
Austin and his squadron’s mission was to fly the two Liberators into t h e se fragile conditions dropping wireless operators, saboteurs and s uppl i es to the partisans who lived in the mountains of German-occupi ed Gree c e and Yugoslavia. It was a difficult ask as Liberators wer e 50-ton sup p ly planes only lightly armed and requiring a lot of pet rol for the lon g f lights from Fayid to Yugoslavia and back. They ha d to pack as much e qu ipment and men on each flight as possible. Cons equently theplanes wer e s tripped of non-essential weight - 95 percen t of the ammunition was d is carded, leaving only 100 rounds in the re ar gun turret. Austin said: “ W e were flying all night over enemy ter ritory in aircraft that were lit e rally defenceless. It was a cat-and -mouse operation.”
The Liberator crews had to be elusive and get out of enemy territory b y d a ybreak or they were prime targets. But the enemy wasn’t the onl y dange r . One particular night Austin flew into cloud that was ful l of “severe i c ing” over the Aegean Sea. The Liberator’s instrument s immediately froz e a nd he became disorientated in the thick cloud . He was unaware of his a l titude and unsure if he was going straigh t or off course.Although the a u topilot was on, Austin said his insti nct was to take the stick and alt e r its level. But this action coul d be deadly. Instead, Austin refused t h e itch to grab the controls a nd stood up from his seat to feel the sit u ation. Everything felt nor mal, so he waited it out while de-icing heat e rs kicked in. It remain ed this way for some minutes for what must have b e en an eternity. Ev entually the instruments came back after an intensel y -nervous wait f or Austin in his blind, drifting aircraft.
Despite numerous dangers including the weather, anti-aircraft ground f i r e and enemy fighters, Austin wrote: “The thing that caused us th e most c o ncern was a bloody star! Venus!”. It was often mistaken fo r an enemy p l ane. Austin said he knew of some gunners shooting of f a few precaution a ry rounds at the planet, just in case.
Eventually, after numerous trips, wireless communication enabled the L i b erators to receive weather forecasts and news of the success of th eir d r ops. The flights were known to be some of the most arduous fli ghts und e r extremely difficult conditions. Austin finished these ope rations wit h 4 46 hours of flying. He flew 19 trips to Yugoslavia an d 13 drops into G r eece.
In recognition for the flights into Yugoslavia Austin was awarded theO r d er of the Crown of Yugoslavia on October 20, 1942. This was follow ed w i th one of the highest honours awarded to pilots, the Distinguis hed Fly i ng Cross.
Austin and his crew were taken off transport duty in October 1943. Th e o d ds must have been in his favour as he was still alive after thi s exten s ive period - of the 56 men he trained with during the earl y stage of t h e war in Canada, only 15 returned home. Perhaps a littl e luck was on h i s side. “Fate played strange tricks in those weird d ays,” he said.
Austin was assigned to instructing other pilots how to fly large trans p o rt planes. During the course of one morning Austin finished up ins truc t ing another pilot in a Liberator. He finished the lesson and la nded fo r b reakfast. His good friend, Squadron Leader Rolph-Smith, to ok over th e j ob and took the Liberator up for another lesson. Durin g the plane’s f i rst circuit it struck a Hurricane that was coming in to land, it sliced o f f the Liberator’s tail. “All were killed instan tly.” Austin returned t o f ind he was promoted to squadron leader.
Despite the war and all the experiences that came with it, Austin’s Me m o ries are filled with amusing moments. One is when his good frien d thro u ghout the war, Jacko Madill, sent Christmas correspondence t o his fath e r expressing that he was in need of money. His father rep lied by sendi n g him a Christmas cake that hid the only reliable curr ency at the time - g o ld sovereigns.
Unfortunately, Jacko’s aunts were also keen to help their nephew’s wa r e f fort. In which case several cakes arrived for Jacko courtesy o f his do t ing aunties. The mass of cakes camouflaged the true identit y of the “r i chest cake”. Austin was called on and together they hack ed up several C h ristmas cakes until they struck gold.
The war ended in August 1944 and Austin was posted home. He wrote of o n e o f his last experiences - it happened as he was getting ready t o retu rn t o New Zealand. “ I’d finished for the day, was packing u p to gohome a n d watching the Liberators coming in to land, at night . Thoughtthat blo k e’s low! He was, the next second , CRASH and flame s. So intomy little u t e, tore up the road about a quarter mile, ra n across a paddock and hel p ed pull one guy away from the burning wre ck. He’d hit something, had n o r oof to his mouth and of course no te eth. And boy, washe hot. The amb ul ance arrived, popped him in an d I sat on his tummy all the way to hos p ital trying to dig his teet h out of his throat everytime he choked. Of t en wonder what happene d to him. Poor devil.”
The next day Austin left for home. He returned via Morocco to Britain , o n t o the Queen Mary, which shipped him to New York where he remai ned fo r s ix weeks before training across America to San Francisco, t henon a b oa t to Noumea before reaching New Zealand.
John Austin-Smith left his home town at the age of 19. He travelled th e w o rld and experienced the highs and lows of war, and the comradesh ips th a t were made and lost. He said the memories he made lived in h im foreve r : “They are events I will never forget and experiences an d friendships o n ly war can provide”. He returned home a humble, deco rated hero. As a w a rtime pilot he amassed a total of 1715 flying hou rs. John Austin-Smith p a ssed away last month aged 83.
TEXT: _WEBTAG
NAME WebTag
URL http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=93427436
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1920 - 2003 (83 years)
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