263717 Flt.Sgt. Robert Hugh Campbell Royal Australian Air Force 102 (Ceylon) Squadron from:Sydney, Australia (d.12th November 1943) My Uncle Robert Campbell was 25 years old when he and his crew were laying mines off the Frisian Islands when they were shot down by a flak ship.
Bobby was an Australian who was a young man working on an enormous cattle station in Queensland named Wave Hill as a jackaroo, he decided that he wanted to join up and train to be a pilot.
His journey from the top of Australia to Melbourne at the bottom was in the newspaper at the time.
His initial training was at Mascot in Sydney and his first trainer was a relative of Charles Kingsford Smith, a famous Australian airman. Sydney airport is named after him. Like most Australians Bobby was sent to Aylmer in Ontario for the next part of his training. He was then sent to England and learnt to fly Halifax bombers. He was a beautiful boy, a bit of a devil I think.
I am lucky to have all his letters to his mother firstly from the cattle station, then from his days in Canada and England. It is fascinating to see him growing in maturity from a 16 year old boy to a 25 year old man. I have had them preserved. The saddest letter is his mother’s last letter to him which was returned to her. It is hard for us to imagine the horror for her of receiving that letter back.
My grandmother kept in touch with the mothers of the other boys in his crew and for many years sent parcels to them as times were hard after the war in England. One of the mothers sent her the poem of They shall grow not old, in a lovely picture frame in her own hand writing with drawings surrounding it including a little plane. I am lucky to have that as well.
I don’t know anything about those other boys but their names:
- JC Arrowsmith Sgt.
- LD Dingley FO
- AG Dyson F/Sgt
- C Healey Sgt
- F Thrall
- Sgt LG Yorke Sgt
I honour them and their families.
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