Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

The following is a transcript of Robert John McArthur's  military service he wrote before his death in 2017.

I enlisted for RAAF aircrew on my 18th birthday in February 1942. There was a long wait for induction at this stage, so I was enlisted in the AMF (3rd Army Ammunition Company) while waiting for an RAAF call.

The delay was long and the war going so badly, I volunteered for AIF and was transferred to 2/2 AASC, 6th Division. I was sent to New Guinea with the 6th Division in October 1942 and advised by the Adjutant in Milne Bay that although a call had been received from RAAF, transfers would not be sanctioned from battle areas. 

Some months later the unit had moved to Port Moresby and was engaged in dropping food and ammunition from Dakota aircraft over the front lines in the Owen Stanley Ranges. Things were bad at this stage so I volunteered for transfer to infantry. 

Before this eventuated however, half of our unit was sent to Wau airstrip with the rest to follow later. By chance another RAAF call arrived the day after a Japanese raid and this time it was handled by the Commanding Officer who signed a release and provided transport to Murray Barracks where 12 RAAF reservists were held for several weeks while the army and the airforce argued about our release. The CO at Murray barracks finally tired of the argument and the 12 of us were shipped home to Australia where we were discharged from the AIF and enlisted by the RAAF. The long delay prove fatal to my seeing action in the air however, as extensive training and transfers over a large part of the globe made graduation too late.

Two months initial training in ground studies at Somers was followed by two months initial pilot training at Benalla. Another long delay followed with sea travel across the Pacific to complete advance Flying training in Canada. Finally I won my 'wings' at North Battleford, Saskatchewan in Canada and was approved to be headed to Europe.

The war in Germany was nearing a close however and my destination was changed back to Australia. There were more delays with train travel in Canada and the USA, then another long trip across the Pacific, which even included a diversion up north of New Guinea before we finally got home.

After a couple of months at 2OTU Mildura, I was posted to a pilot pool at Uranquinty and was still there flying Wirraways in simulated attacks on army training areas when the bomb went off in Hiroshima.

It could thus be considered I was one of the many thousands described as 'they also serve who only stand and wait'.

The following is some additional information provided by Robert John's son Clive.

Dad left the RAAF in 1946. He had friends who invited him to begin an air freight business to King island (Brain and Brown) out of Essendon airport but he felt it would too much like driving a bus after the excitement he just experienced in training as a fighter pilot! His log books show his flights learning his skills initially in a Gypsy Major Tiger Moth biplane in Benalla in 1943. Then he graduated to Harvards and Avro Ansons in Saskatchewan Canada in 1944, and finally the Wirraways at Uranquinty back home in Australia in 1945. So dad traded this in to became a computer programer and worked for PMG/Telcom for the next 30 years. But he never forgot the thrill of flying. Never.

Bob was very much a child of a family dealing with the challenges of the Great Depression of the 1920s/30s. He was born in 1924, in the western districts of Victoria in Broadford - the son of Archibald McArthur (the Postmaster initially at Broadford PO then at Natimuk PO which was a position of some standing in these days) who was the son of farmers in the Grampians. His brothers continued farming the land in the Victoria Valley and their sons and grandsons are still there today (as of 2022).

Archibald however sold his portion of the farm and used the money to support his and many others within the family during these trying times. Bob used to tell stories of unemployed men and families coming to the door asking for work or food. Difficult times. Bob's mother was Mercia Scullin who was the niece of depression era Prime Minister James Scullin. Archibald sent him a telegram, congratulating him on his election victory. PM Scullin answered the telegram with words to the effect of  'Arch, if you knew what I've 'gotten' into you'd be sending commiseration’s, not congratulations.' 

My father Robert John was always the life of the party as we grew up in the 1960s and 70s of suburban Melbourne. He played piano by ear (a skill he learnt growing up in the social farming areas of the Grampians) and this served him well with the air crew between flying. He loved his family dearly. He and mum loved the dances of the 1950s at dance halls around Melbourne and they moved out to Croydon in 1959 where the land was affordable with the intention of moving back bayside later on. They spent 60 years together in that house on Murray Rd. Mum died in 2015 aged 87. And dad in 2017 aged 93. 

Bobby always spoke with a 'twinkle' in his voice of his days spent in the armed forces during WW2. He and mum maintained many lifelong friendships from these days.

Bob's only brother was too young to serve in WW2. He was 11 years old when it concluded. So in the post war years Clive was still eager to do ‘his bit’. In 1954 he joined the Australian Army (Post WW2), SN 3/3776, British Commonwealth Base Signal Regiment, as a signalman. He was employed in Tokyo as part of the Post-Armistice service ceasefire monitoring for Korea, from 1954 until his sad death in an accident on January 30th 1956. He was only 21 years old - a week ‘shy’ of his 22nd birthday. My father never really got over losing his little brother, and of course when he and mum had me only three years later in 1959, I became the proud bearer of the name ‘Clive McArthur’.