1 October 1940. Australians in the Battle of Britain. Vale Clarence Charles Bennett

Australians in the Battle of Britain. 1 October 1940. Vale Clarence Charles Bennett

South Australia must have been a hotbed of airmindedness in the mid-1930s. It was the adopted home of one Battle of Britain pilot—Bill Millington—and the birthplace of six Battle of Britain pilots—Robert Bungey, John Cock, Desmond Fopp, Lewis Hamilton, Dick Reynell and Clarence Charles Bennett.

Clarence was born on 28 November 1916 at Mallala, the son of a railway worker. He was educated at Kapunda and, after school, took a job as a junior clerk in the railways, transferring to Mount Gambier in 1936. He developed a reputation among his colleagues as a man of ‘untiring energy’ with a ‘happy-go-lucky manner’ and a ‘readiness to lend a hand to all and sundry’. He was popular amongst both his workmates and customers and at some point acquired the nickname ‘Rattler’.

Conscientious he may have been at his duties but he was not averse to the occasional escapade and his workmates recall the day he rode his motor bike up to the tower at Mount Gambier and then narrowly missing a plunge into the Devil’s Punch Bowl, one of several blowholes in the area, on his return.

According to his old workmates, Clarrie was always ‘airminded’ and at the age of 16 built his own glider. From gliding he turned his eyes to aircraft and in 1938 took flying lessons. He resigned from the railways in December 1938 and sailed to England in February 1939 to enlist in the RAF. He was the first South Australian Railway Officer to serve in the Second World War.

Training completed, he was posted to 248 Squadron on 6 November 1939 where he met fellow South Australian Lewis Hamilton. There they flew the fighter variant of the Bristol Blenheim.

He developed a reputation as a good pilot, with particular expertise in bad weather and blind flying. As with his railway friends, he was a popular member of his squadron.

On 28 September, during an operation over the North Sea, he engaged and damaged a Dornier 18 flying boat. Despite being shot in the leg, the only reason he broke off the attack was because he was running low on fuel.

On 1 October, Clarrie was tasked with what Lewis Hamilton termed a ‘tricky piece of work’, a photographic reconnaissance operation to the Norwegian coast. He failed to return and he and his crew were posted missing.

He was the twelfth Australian to die in the Battle of Britain.

On 9 August 1941, Air Board in Melbourne wrote to Clarrie’s family to advise that ‘in view of the lapse of time and the absence of any further news regarding your son’ they ‘must regretfully conclude that he has lost his life and his death will be presumed, for official purposes, to have occurred on 1st October 1940’.

In due course, Clarence’s personal effects were gathered up and sent by sea to Australia. On 19 July 1943, his father Septimus signed a receipt and took possession of his son’s personal items. They ranged from the usual sort of text books and RAF uniform to the more intimate chest protector, shaving brush, razors and pyjamas. Indicating that Clarrie’s youthful fascination with flying had never left despite the work-a-day nature of operations, the cabin trunk included a model aeroplane. Showing that Clarence had taken advantage of the hospitality offered British county families, almost lost amongst the larger items, was a small box of visiting cards. And perhaps indicating the seriousness he took his photographic reconnaissance role, the trunk also contained a book on photography.

The receipt allowed for only the date and his signature, but, indicating the great gratitude and relief that his son’s belongings had arrived, Septimus added ‘thanking you’ to the bottom of the form, and took the trunk home to commence the sad process of sifting through the items. Perhaps his heart was gladdened when he discovered letters and photos and training records which would give a sense of the experiences of his son and the life he had lived in Britain.

Clarence’s railway friends honoured him by including him on their association’s Honour Roll, and in their magazine gave him a fine tribute:

‘A better man I’ve never met, a better man I never wish to meet’.