In September 1912 Government approval was given for the establishment of an Australian military flying school. The Central Flying School was based at Point Cook in Victoria.
At the commencement of the Great War the Australian Flying Corps was formed as a corps of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). At the commencement of the hostilities the AFC had two flying instructors and five aircraft.
The Australian War Memorial website gives an outline of the AFC’s activities during the war stating: The AFC’s four-line squadrons usually served separately under the orders of Britain’s Royal Flying Corps. The AFC’s first complete flying unit, No. 1 Squadron, left Australia for the Middle East in March 1916. By late 1917 three more squadrons, Nos 2, 3, and 4, had been formed to fight in France. A further four training squadrons based in England formed an Australian Training Wing to provide pilots for the Western Front. For more information click here.
Australia’s Official History of Australia in the War 1914-1918, Volume III, The Australian Flying Corps in the Western and Eastern Theatres of War, 1914-1918 written by F.M. Cutlack, is available on line at the Australian War Memorial Website. Click here.
As part of the fund raising activities for the AFC a song was published by the AFC Comfort Fund with words ‘by some of the boys’ and music by H. Brewster-Jones.
Source: National Library of Australia
We are the boys of the Flying Corps,
Australia’s the land we defend,
Our Planes fly over land and sea,
And the war we’ll fight to the end.
We’ve got Planes and Pilots too,
Who chase the Taube through the blue,
And we’ll be there to keep in repair our fine British aeroplanes too.
Chorus:
Over land and over the sea bombing the Boche and making him flee,
Hey! Archibold shoot a little higher, you!
Fritz below have a banana?
Send up your Taubes to Tommy and me.
Come along. Coo-ee!
Planes that fly across the sky to defend our country and King,
Are built as true as can do in engine, chasis or wing.
But though they often win unharmed they sometimes tumble beneath the foe;
So We’ll be there to do our share, and patch and mend the blow.
Chorus
The musical score is available from the National Library of Australia. Click here.
Frank McNamara was the first Australian airman to be awarded the Victoria Cross. Lt. McNamara was a graduate from the Central Flying School. McNamara was awarded the VC for rescuing a fellow squadron member, Captain D. W. Rutherford who had been shot down during a raid over Gaza. To find out more about the exploits of Frank McNamara click here.
In March 1921, drawing on the experience of the First World War, the AFC went on to become a fully independent Air Force. Captain McNamara went on to pursue a career in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), rising to the rank of Air Vice Marshal during the Second World War. Click here to read more.
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British aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps, including the AFC, for most of the Great War carried the familiar red, white and blue roundel as their distinctive markings, however, this was not the original choice of marking. Unfortunately, when the aircraft were at high altitude, the Union Flag insignia used as the early markings, appeared as a red cross and on one occasion French forces had mistaken it for the German cross. Then, on 26 October 1914, an aircraft from No 4 Squadron RFC was on artillery reconnaissance near Gheluvelt, when at about 1,000 feet, it was fired on by British infantrymen and crashed in flames killing the pilot Lt. Hosking and the observer, Captain Crean. This incident hastened the adoption of the red, white and blue roundel as the RFC insignia.
Source: Stand To! The Journal of the Western Front Association, No 13, Spring 1985 CQMS Hopper’s Diary