Everyday Life

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, the Empire Air Training Scheme saw almost 27,500 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners, and engineers join Royal Air Force squadrons or Australian squadrons based in Britain. Having undertaken basic instruction in Australia, air crews travelled to other Allied nations to complete their training. While Canada was a common destination, some travelled as far as South Africa and the Bahamas.

Official War Artist R. Malcolm Warner was commissioned to follow aircrews and capture their everyday activities. The first work bellow depicts Course 100’s Wings Parade at No. 3 Service Flying Training School in Calgary, Alberta. Here pilots receive their ‘wings’, a mark that they are ready to fly.

This painting is one of few records of Empire Air Training Scheme training in the Bahamas. It depicts “ditching training”, practicing how to exit a plane after an emergency landing in water. A stripped American B-25 Mitchell fuselage sits before a pool of water into which the fuselage would be pushed.

The Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service was established in July 1940. To be selected, women needed to be single, an Australian citizen, and aged between 21 and 40. The below portrait of Flight Officer Mavis Winifred John of Group 824 by Official War Artist Nora Heysen was completed in 1945. Heysen captured many portraits of servicemen and servicewomen, particularly in Australia and New Guinea.

The below drawing by Official War Artist R. Emerson Curtis, Mixed Nationalities on Canberra Airfield, depicts Javanese Corporal Djadi and Dutch Sergeant Major Weertman checking over an American Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk in Canberra in May 1945.

This next painting is by Official War Artist Stella Bowen and depicts an Australian flight officer of the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) serving refreshments to Warrant Officer George Edward Maskell Lindenberg DFC of No. 460 Squadron, RAF. The image was captured on D-Day, just before the Allied invasion of Normandy that lead to Allied victory in Europe.

If you can identify the WAAF officer in the painting below (likely attached to No. 460 Squadron RAAF in 1944), please contact Art@awm.gov.au.

Following their time in the RAAF, a sad reality was that many who were involved in accidents were left permanently disabled. In her work RAAF Airmen at Mongewell Park Medical Rehabilitation Unit, Bowen captures a rarely depicted moment in which RAAF airmen are shown returning back to their pre-war pastimes, despite their injuries.