Bruce Clifton, who was the sole survivor of a Royal Air Force bomber crew shot down in 1945, will be awarded the French Legion of Honour medal at a ceremony at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance on Monday, July 7.

The 91-year-old will be presented the Chevalier dans l'odre National de la Legion d'Honour –  literally knight of the national order of the Legion of Honour – by the French ambassador to  Australia Christophe Lecourtier.

The French ambassador informed Mr Clifton of the honour in March after his application was  approved by the French government.

“It recognises your outstanding service during the Second World War. This is France's way to express its gratitude towards those who risked their lives for the liberation of France,” Mr Lecourtier said in the letter.

“I have great pleasure to inform you that, by the decision of the President of the French Republic you have been awarded the decoration of Chevalier dans Ordre National d la Legion d'Honour.”

Mr Clifton -  a member of Legacy, Ballarat South Rotary, RSL Ballarat Branch and the RAAF Association - said the Department of Veteran Affairs informed him the French government had made an offer to award Australian servicemen deployed in Europe between January 1 and May 8, 1945 who wished to apply.

Six of Mr Clifton's seven adult children – Margaret, Cathy Elisabeth, Peter, Robert and David – will be at the ceremony. John is in Denmark and unable to attend. 

“I felt honoured when I received the letter. Being in the air force we did not have the flowers given to us and other signs of gratitude like the ground troops did,” Mr Clifton said.

“I would probably not take it out of its box often but it will be nice to know it is there of course. It is not a bravery award. It's more to recognise service in the liberation of France.”

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OF the 125,000 men who flew with RAF Bomber Command during World War II,  55,573 lost their lives, an astonishing casualty rate of 44.4 per cent. During the war only German U-Boat crews (68.4 per cent killed) fared worse.

Yet Flying Officer Bruce Clifton never believed his Lancaster bomber crew of seven would be among the thousands shot down during the Royal Air Force's night bombing campaign against the Third Reich.

“You would see the absences in the mess (dining room) but you just thought it was something that was going to happen to someone else,” Mr Clifton recalled. “It was a bad night when four crews out of 17 did not come home.”

On February 8, 1945, the night of the crew's 11th operation, their luck ran out. The four-engine bomber they were aboard was struck and torn apart. It was neither a Luftwaffe night fighter nor gun crew which ended the lives of Mr Clifton's six crew members – the shots were fired from neutral Sweden.

“We found out early that morning 'ops tonight'. An oil refinery in Politz near Stettin,” Mr Clifton explained.

“I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. We did the same target in January.

“When we were due to take off the inner starboard engine didn't start. If it didn't start in the 30 minutes you wouldn't go. The engine started on the 28th minute.

“We weren't fired at over Denmark, which was fully occupied. Then over Sweden I saw four items of flak coming up at us. I'd heard from experienced crews (the shells) look really slow and then really speed up as they got close and that was what it was like. I tried to bank to the left to avoid it – if I'd gone right it would have missed.”

Four shells hit the belly of the aircraft and Mr Clifton's control stick went dead as the plane went into a dive. Then everything just went to hell.

“I called 'jump, jump, jump' but I couldn't hear it in the headphones so nobody else could either,” Mr Clifton said.

“When the flight engineer turned away to get his chute it was then the aircraft blew up. There was a vivid flash and I can remember thinking Mum was going to be upset. 

“I must have been thrown out by the explosion and thought I might be dead but then I saw a dark shape, which was an engine cowling. That woke me up and I pulled my chute. I was very annoyed I'd been shot down by a neutral country.

“I realised then my six mates were dead.”

Landing in a muddy field, Mr Clifton made his way to a home and was let in by a frightened family.

The police eventually turned up and he was interred in north central Sweden for a month before he was returned to Scotland aboard a DC3.

Before he could complete training with a new flight crew, the war in Europe ended. 

Mr Clifton had joined the Royal Australian Air Force as an 18-year-old, earning his pilots' wings in Tiger Moths (at Narrandera in NSW) and Avro Ansons (in Mallala in South Australia).

Upon arriving in England he retrained on Tiger Months and Airspeed Oxfords before graduating to twin-engine Wellington bombers, four-engine Stirlings and finally the pride of Bomber Command, the Avro Lancaster.

“They were the ultimate as far as I was concerned. A joy to fly,” Mr Clifton said.

“I was posted to No 57 RAF Squadron at East Kirkby in Lincolnshire as a 20-year-old. We flew in a gaggle of 220 'Lancs' plus a master bomber in a Mosquito. 

“All our operations were at night. We were never directly attacked by a night fighter but we saw others struck by tracers. The least comforting experience was flying to Munich and my navigator telling me we were lost.” 

In October 1945 Mr Clifton returned to Australia and became a foundation member of the La Trobe Flying Club. Despite having flown four-engine bombers at night in hostile skies, the local authorities did not make it easy for him before granting him a student pilots licence.

He has lived in Ballarat for about four decades.

Mr Clifton has been back to Sweden to visit the family which took him in and fed him, and to visit the graves of his fellow crew members. He had a photo taken among the grave sites, the only photograph he has of his crew.

As for the gun crew which shot them down, Mr Clifton bears no ill-will. 

“I've since found out perhaps they thought we were a lone German intruder based in Denmark.”