Ballarat’s long chain of connection with the RAAF of World War 2 had another link broken this week with the death of former Bomber Command Flying Officer Bruce Clifton.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Clifton died on Saturday at the age of 94. He had joined the Royal Australian Air Force as an 18-year-old and earned his wings flying de Havilland Tiger Moths, before graduating to Avro Ansons, Airspeed Oxfords, Short Stirlings and Vickers Wellingtons.
He then flew the last great tailwheel bomber of the war, the Avro Lancaster.
“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,” Mr Clifton said in an interview with The Courier in 2016.
“They were the ultimate as far as I was concerned. A joy to fly.”
Less joyful was the night of February 8, 1945, when Bruce Clifton’s Lancaster was struck by flak over Sweden while returning from a bombing raid on oil refineries in Stettin, then a part of Germany.
Four shells hit the belly of the aircraft and Mr Clifton's control stick died as the plane fell from the sky.
“I called 'jump, jump, jump', but I couldn't hear it in the headphones, so nobody else could either,” Mr Clifton said in 2016.
“When the flight engineer turned away to get his chute, 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.”
He landed safely in Sweden and returned to Scotland soon after.
Bruce Clifton’s son David said his father returned to Australia and worked for the National Bank of Australasia (now NAB). The job required a lot of moving around, something which Bruce did not want to inflict on his young family. They settled in Leongatha and then Ballarat, where Bruce was a branch inspector and his wife hailed from originally.
He raised a family of four boys and three girls.
Bruce loved the Footscray Football Club, born of a youth spent in a house backing onto the Western Oval and of his father, also a bank manager, putting the gate takings into the club account each week. Bruce was, says David, a great role model, selfless and always putting his family first.
Bruce Clifton’s funeral will be held at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Thursday November 22, at 10am.
Have you signed up to The Courier's variety of news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in Ballarat.