| Henry Neilson Wrigley | |
|---|---|
Air Vice Marshal Henry Wrigley in London, 1944 |
|
| Nickname | "Wrig" |
| Born | 21 April 1892 Melbourne, Victoria |
| Died | 14 September 1987 (aged 95) Melbourne, Victoria |
| Allegiance | Australia |
| Service/branch | Royal Australian Air Force |
| Years of service | 1916–1946 |
| Rank | Air Vice Marshal |
| Commands held | No. 3 Squadron AFC (1919) RAAF Station Laverton (1936–39) No. 1 Group (1939–40) RAAF Overseas HQ (1942–46) |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards | Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Flying Cross Air Force Cross |
| Other work | Author |
Air Vice Marshal Henry Neilson Wrigley CBE, DFC, AFC (21 April 1892 – 14 September 1987) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A pioneer aviator and theorist, he piloted the first trans-Australia flight from Melbourne to Darwin in 1919, and subsequently laid the groundwork for the RAAF's air power doctrine. During World War I, Wrigley saw combat with No. 3 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps on the Western Front, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross; he later commanded the unit and published a history of its wartime exploits. He was awarded the Air Force Cross for his 1919 cross-country flight to Darwin.
Wrigley was a founding member of the RAAF in 1921 and held a variety of staff posts in the ensuing years. In 1936, he was promoted to Group Captain and took command of RAAF Station Laverton. Raised to Air Commodore soon after the outbreak of World War II, he became Air Member for Personnel (AMP) in 1940. As AMP, Wrigley was responsible for organising the newly established Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force and selecting its Director, Clare Stevenson, in 1941. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire the same year. Wrigley served as Air Officer Commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters, London, from 1942 until his retirement from the military in 1946. He died in 1987, at the age of ninety-five.
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Wrigley was born on 21 April 1892 in Collingwood, a suburb of Melbourne, to Henry and Beatrice Wrigley.[1][2] Educated at Melbourne High School, he was a state school teacher when he joined the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) on 5 October 1916.[2][3] Wrigley underwent pilot training under the tutelage of Lieutenant Eric Harrison at Central Flying School in Point Cook, Victoria, before departing Melbourne aboard HMAT A38 Ulysses on 25 October, bound for Europe.[3][4]
After further training in England, Wrigley was posted to France and flew with No. 3 Squadron AFC (also known until 1918 as No. 69 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps) on the Western Front.[4] Operating R.E.8s, the unit was engaged in reconnaissance, artillery-spotting and ground support duties.[5] Wrigley was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his "exceptional devotion to duty", in particular his persistence in pressing home an attack against enemy infantry on 29 October 1918 in the face of "intense machine gun and rifle fire"; the honour was promulgated in the London Gazette on 3 June 1919.[6][7] He was subsequently promoted Captain and became No. 3 Squadron's Commanding Officer.[8] Wrigley later observed that most wartime aircraft were "impossible to fight in", and that senior officers were "too occupied with coaxing aeroplanes into the air and teaching pilots to bring them down again without breaking their necks" to consider the wider implications of air power.[9]
Wrigley returned to Australia on 6 May 1919.[3] Later that year he took part in the first transcontinental flight across Australia, from Melbourne to Darwin, designed to cooincide with the first England to Australia flight. Accompanied by his mechanic and former schoolmate, Sergeant Arthur "Spud" Murphy, Wrigley departed Point Cook on 16 November and arrived in Port Darwin on 12 December, having travelled some 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi) in forty-seven flying hours. The men flew in a single-engined B.E.2 biplane, with no radio, over unmapped and often hazardous terrain, and surveyed seventeen potential landing fields along the way.[10][11] Wrigley considered the choice of Murphy as his cohort "a particularly happy one" but called the aircraft they were assigned "an obsolete type, even for training purposes", while conceding that "it was structurally sound and airworthy."[12] The men were each awarded the Air Force Cross in recognition of their achievement.[6][11] Such was the perceived danger of the expedition that while making preparations for the return flight they received a telegram from the Defence Department ordering them to desist, arrange for the B.E.2 to be dismantled and shipped back, and themselves to travel southwards by steamer.[12]
On 1 January 1920, Wrigley transferred to the Australian Air Corps (AAC), a temporary organisation formed by the Army following disbandment of the wartime AFC.[13] He was appointed adjutant at Central Flying School the following month.[14] In 1921, Wrigley joined the newly established Royal Australian Air Force. Ranked Flight Lieutenant, he was one of the original twenty-one officers on the Air Force's strength at its formation that March, and became known as "Wrig".[15][16] For the next two years he was staff officer to the Director of Personnel and Training at RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne.[17] On 5 July 1922, Wrigley married Marjorie Rees; the couple would have a son and a daughter.[2] He served as the RAAF's Training Officer from March 1923 to April 1925—during which time he was promoted to Squadron Leader—before being appointed Director of Organisation and Staff Duties at RAAF Headquarters.[9][18] In November 1927, he took part in another pioneering effort, aiming to make the first night flight from Sydney to Melbourne. Having taken off from RAAF Station Richmond in a DH.9, Wrigley and his co-pilot had been in the air for six hours and covered 345 miles (555 km) when a broken fuel line forced them to land for repairs; they completed the journey the following day.[19]
Wrigley travelled to England in 1928 to attend RAF Staff College, Andover, becoming one of the first RAAF officers to complete the course.[8] He also served as Air Liaison Officer in London, initiating correspondence with the British Air Council in 1929 to discuss a proposal for the RAAF to adopt as its own the RAF's motto Per Ardua Ad Astra.[20] Returning to Australia, he became Director of Operations and Intelligence at RAAF Headquarters in 1930, and then Director of Organisation and Staff Duties the following year.[17] He published his history of No. 3 Squadron, The Battle Below, in 1935.[1] Promoted Group Captain, he took over as Commanding Officer (CO) of RAAF Station Laverton, Victoria, from Group Captain Frank McNamara in October 1936. Wrigley handed over the station's command to Group Captain Adrian Cole in February 1939.[21]
As part of the RAAF's reorganisation following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, No. 1 Group was formed in Melbourne on 20 November, with Wrigley in command.[22] Promoted Air Commodore, in 1940 he served briefly as Air Officer Commanding Southern Area, the successor organisation to No. 1 Group, before taking up the position of Air Member for Personnel (AMP) later that year.[23][24] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1941 New Year Honours.[6] As AMP, Wrigley was responsible for organising the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), established on 25 March 1941 as the first uniformed women's branch of an armed service in the country.[25] He believed that recruiting servicewomen was essential to augment the large number of ground staff required to support the war effort, and considered that while such an organisation should be constitutionally separate to the RAAF, its members should be closely integrated within the current force structure.[26] On 21 May, he selected the WAAAF's Director, corporate executive Clare Stevenson, over temporary appointee Mary Bell, wife of a serving RAAF Group Captain. Wrigley chose Stevenson on the basis of her management background and because she was not a "socialite".[1] Bell, who was offered the position of Deputy Director, chose to resign from the WAAAF on learning of Stevenson's appointment, but Wrigley later convinced her to rejoin.[25] He had earlier argued successfully with the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, RAF, against naming Burnett's daughter Sybil-Jean as Director, declaring that there would be "a public outcry" if anyone other than an Australian was appointed.[27]
In late 1942, Wrigley was promoted acting Air Vice Marshal and took over from Frank McNamara as Air Officer Commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters in London.[8][28] In this position he was responsible for looking after the interests of RAAF aircrew stationed in Europe and the Middle East, liaising between the British Air Ministry and the Australian government regarding technical developments and information on the war in the Pacific, and negotiating revisions to the terms of the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS).[29] The role had little influence on the deployment of Australian personnel, who were subject to Royal Air Force policy and strategy for the air war in Europe even when they belonged to RAAF squadrons.[8][30] According to the official history of Australia's part in the conflict, Wrigley and his predecessors could hardly do more than "retard the centrifugal forces affecting Australian disposition, and repair the worst administrative difficulties arising from wide dispersion".[31] Nevertheless, Wrigley became a familiar and popular figure to the thousands of Australian airmen who passed through London during the war, and was known to take off his jacket and tend bar at Codgers, the headquarters' watering hole.[8][30] An EATS graduate later remarked that "...under Air Vice-Marshal Wrigley we got tremendous service... I was in North Africa, Italy, Sardinia, Corsica and then back in the United Kingdom. We got our mail, we got our comforts and we got tremendous service. Not only that, when some cow went and pinched 100 quid from me when I was on leave in London, the next day, with a shaking hand, I was able to sign for another 100 quid and have a good time."[32]
In March 1943, following negotiations that had begun the previous year, Wrigley signed a revision of EATS that finally recognised Australia's "national aspirations" regarding concentration of her airmen in RAAF squadrons as opposed to them being scattered throughout RAF units, reasonable prospects of promotion and rotation for staff, and pay and other conditions of service confirmed as being per RAAF stipulations. However, contended the official history, "for the most part Australia was still left chasing a dream rather than a reality", as many clauses in the agreement were "subject to operational exigencies" and to be adhered to only "as far as possible".[33] Wrigley toured the Mediterranean in September, visiting No. 459 Squadron in the Middle East, and travelling to Sicily to interview ground staff of No. 450 Squadron over their grievances concerning lack of promotion and leave; his presence was considered to have defused the latter situation.[34][35] The end of hostilities in Europe on 7 May 1945 raised a major logistical challenge for Wrigley as the senior officer responsible for some 13,500 RAAF personnel spread across Britain, the Mediterranean and the continent, only a minority of whom were in nominally Australian squadrons, with the bulk serving with RAF establishments. "The task was energetically met", however, according to the official history, with fewer than 1,000 RAAF personnel still remaining in RAF units by 1 September, although repatriation continued through into the new year.[36]
Wrigley was summarily retired from the RAAF in 1946, along with a number of other senior commanders and veterans of World War I, ostensibly to make way for the advancement of younger and equally capable officers.[37][38] Keenly disappointed with the decision, Wrigley was officially discharged on 6 June.[8][39] In 1966 he became Executive Officer of the Victorian Overseas Foundation, and later a trustee.[2][40] He published Aircraft and Economic Development: The RAAF Contribution through the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1969.[41] In March 1971, he was among a select group of surviving founder members of the RAAF who attended a celebratory dinner at the Hotel Canberra to mark the service's Golden Jubilee; his fellow guests included Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, Air Vice Marshal Bill Anderson, Air Commodore Hippolyte De La Rue, and Wing Commander Sir Lawrence Wackett.[42] After the death of his first wife, Marjorie, Wrigley married Zenda Edwards on 5 January 1972.[2] He wrote a history of the Victorian branch of the United Services Institution in 1980. Aged ninety-five, he died in Melbourne on 14 September 1987.[1]
Throughout his life, Wrigley was an "inveterate note-taker" who compiled extensive documentation concerning the theory and practice of air power, on which he lectured among colleagues in the RAAF during the 1920s.[1][8] The concepts that he propagated included air superiority, the need for an air force to be separate to the other branches of the armed services, control of the air as a means of carrying out offensive strikes, and the substitution of aerial forces for ground troops.[16] While arguing for the independence of the air arm, Wrigley was quick to dispel any notion that it would simply "arrive from God knows where, drop [its] bombs God knows where, and go off again God knows where"; rather it should act in concert with the army and navy in furtherance of government policy.[9] He is thus credited with laying the foundations for the RAAF's modern air power doctrine, which would eventually be codified as the Air Power Manual in 1990. Wrigley's widow bequeathed twenty volumes of his writings, maps and photographs to the RAAF Museum at Point Cook after his death; they were edited and published by Air Commodore Brendan O'Loghlin and Wing Commander Alan Stephens in 1990 as The Decisive Factor: Air Power Doctrine by Air Vice-Marshal H.N. Wrigley.[1][8] In 1996, Wrigley's former residence as CO of RAAF Station Laverton prior to World War II was christened Wrigley House in his honour.[43] His name is also borne by Henry Wrigley Drive, approaching Darwin International Airport.[44]
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Frank McNamara |
Commanding Officer RAAF Station Laverton 1936–1939 |
Succeeded by Adrian Cole |