Indigenous Odd Bods

Aircrew from 106 Squadron

The Indigenous Round is being celebrated in many Australian sports this week including AFL, NRL and Netball. The Melbourne Shrine is also conducting a Victorian Aboriginal Remembrance Service on Wednesday 31st May 2023. We thought this might be good time to recognise  indigenous Odd Bods.

The Australian War Memorial completed a talk entitled "First Nation Flyers" in 2019. It was conducted by AWM Curator, Garth O'Connell, who was also the presenter of a talk about Odd Bods in the same year. 

The "First Nation Flyers" talk covers a number of indigenous aviators including Lancaster Pilot Roy Hill. Roy was one of three brothers from the Wardandi nation in Western Australia. Roy Hill, who had enlisted in the RAAF, became a pilot and an officer in Bomber Command. Serving in Britain, he flew Lancaster bombers for No. 106 and No. 189 Squadrons of the Royal Air Force. 

Squadron 106 was particularly active towards the end of the war and participated in the famous attack against the V-2 rocket research facility at Peenemünde in 1945. No. 189 Squadron was among the 107 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitos of No 5 Group which attacked the oil refinery in Tonsberg in Southern Norway on 25 April 1945 in the last raid of the war flown by heavy bombers of RAF Bomber Command.

Roy Hill was not a member of the Odd Bods Association but as an Australian serving in RAF squadrons was certainly an Odd Bod.

The "First Nation Flyers" talk can be found here - AWM First Nation Flyers.

POSTSCRIPT:

We have amended the title of this article to read Indigenous Odd Bod(s) because Garth O'Connell from AWM has informed us of another Aboriginal Odd Bod  - 424587 Flying Officer Errol James “Blue” INGRAM, 622 Squadron RAF (1924-1990).

Ingram flew Lancasters towards the end of the war in day and night bombing missions, food drops, and repatriation of POW's.

We should also note that there were reportedly 16,000 Odd Bods in WW2 so the chance of more indigenous aviators is quite high.

* Note: this article has been re-printed from one in 2021. We have updated the lead photograph to a colour version, and added some content.