Who would have known Byaduk and Australian aviation history had a connection? My gg uncles Charles and William Harman, both born at Byaduk, served with the Australian Flying Corps during WW1 and went on to have careers in both military and civil aviation during the 1920s & 30s. Charles lived at Byaduk & then Macarthur until he was 36 before selling his dairy farm, house & contents and enlisting in 1915. He went to the aviation school at Werribee and was assigned to the No. 1 Squadron of the AFC as a mechanic. Because of his age and experience he quickly rose through the ranks. He won a Meritorious Service Medal for his services in the Middle East and immediately after the war served as aide de camp to General Harry Chauvel in London. That alone was an amazing achievement for a farmer from Byaduk. He returned to Australia, working as a recruiting officer for the RAAF and in the late 1920s was posted to London as a liaison officer for the RAAF. That gave him the opportunity to fly in the airship R101, an experience that was reported in The Argus on November 16, 1929 (story in link below). In 1930, probably due to the depression, the RAAF closed its office in London and Charles was sent home. He was extremely annoyed (to put it nicely) and when his ship docked at Perth he spoke to the press and again when it docked in Melbourne. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the RAAF but talked up the future of aviation in Australia. He left aviation until WW2 when he again enlisted but died in the Heidelberg Military Hospital in 1943 aged 64. When William Harman first enlisted he was with the Light Horse but his brother Charles pulled some strings and got him in to the Flying Corps with the No. 1 Squadron as a mechanic. After the war and disenchanted with the direction of military aviation in Australia, he moved to civil aviation as a mechanic. He worked on the planes of Charles Kingsford Smith and formed friendships with both Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm. He eventually left aviation and became a builder in the Robinvale district.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 07:25:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015