Australian Dictionary of Biography

Wilfred Arthur, c. 1977

Northern Territory Port Authority

Wilfred Stanley Arthur (1919–2000), air force officer, farmer, and uranium mine manager, was born on 7 December 1919 at Drummoyne, Sydney, eldest of four children of New South Wales-born Stanley Oswald Darley Arthur, stock inspector, and his English-born wife Helena Elizabeth Arthur, née Chaffers-Welsh. Stanley, also known over the course of his life as Bandy, Wilf, Wolf, and Woof, attended state school at Yelarbon, Queensland, and then Scots College, Warwick (1935–38), where he was a senior prefect and school captain, and served in the senior cadets.

Accepting a cadetship for subsequent appointment to a short service commission in the Royal Australian Air Force in June 1939, he arrived at Point Cook, Victoria, for initial training on 4 September, one day after Australia’s entry into World War II. Despite suffering early bouts of air sickness, he graduated as a pilot officer on 3 March 1940, and joined No. 3 Squadron, RAAF, flying Gloster Gladiators, Hawker Hurricanes, and Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks in North Africa, Syria, and Lebanon, until December 1941. He destroyed his first enemy aircraft—an Italian CR42—on 12 December 1940 and the following day was shot down over Egypt, successfully bailing out of his Gladiator and landing behind enemy lines before being rescued.

Promoted to flight lieutenant on 1 October 1941, on 30 November he claimed two Italian and two German aircraft shot down in a single day in the Bir El Gubi area, a feat for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was mentioned in despatches in January 1942. On 24 December 1941 he had married Egyptian-born Lucille Petraki at St Marks Church of England, Alexandria, Egypt, before honeymooning in Palestine and Syria, and bringing her to Australia, where she had family, aboard a troop-ship in early 1942.

From April 1942 Arthur served as a chief instructor at No. 2 Operational Training Unit at Mildura, Victoria. Promoted to squadron leader in October, in January 1943 he became commanding officer of No. 75 Squadron, a Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk fighter squadron based at Milne Bay, Papua. The youngest officer in the unit, he had a reputation as ‘correct, polite, observant and strict’ (Deane-Butcher 1989, 189), referred to all staff as ‘mister’ regardless of rank, and insisted on intensive training.

On 14 April 1943 Arthur led the attack against a large Japanese formation approaching Milne Bay. When his guns jammed, he reasoned that ‘fortunately nobody else would know except me’ (Arthur 1989, 41), and remained in the battle, feigning attacks and attempting to force a Japanese dive-bomber into the sea. His actions earned him the Distinguished Service Order On 14 June 1943 he was appointed acting wing commander (temporary 1 August 1943) and wing leader, No. 71 Wing, based at Goodenough Island, and was subsequently mentioned in despatches a second time.

In November 1943 Arthur’s Kittyhawk collided with a Spitfire during take-off from Kiriwina, Trobriand Islands. Suffering severe burns, he was evacuated to Sydney for plastic surgery. In July 1944 he returned to command No. 2 Operational Training Unit at Mildura, where he instructed Flight Lieutenant (Sir) John Gorton, rating the future prime minister ‘a most likeable man & a good hardworking officer with slightly above average abilities’ (NAA A9300, Gorton). In October Arthur was promoted to acting group captain, becoming, at the age of twenty-four, the youngest to hold that rank in the RAAF. On 16 December he assumed command of No. 81 Wing Headquarters at Noemfoor, Netherlands East Indies. His doubts about the usefulness of RAAF operations at the time led him to point out to his commanding officer, Air Commodore A. H. Cobby, that in October and November 1944 his wing had destroyed twelve barges and six transport vehicles for the loss of eleven men and fifteen aircraft. On 6 April 1945 he took command of No. 78 Wing at Morotai, where his continuing concerns instigated the so-called ‘Morotai Mutiny,’ when he and seven other senior RAAF officers offered their resignations in protest at dangerous assignments which yielded insignificant gains. He later described his motivation as the ‘bad arithmetic’ of fighting against a strategically useless and isolated enemy: ‘I knew I’d wreck any air force career [but] … I couldn’t face up to people getting killed when there was no bloody reason to’ (Arthur 1989, 52, 55). The affair resulted in the removal of several senior RAAF commanders, but Arthur retained his position and in May 1945 commanded No. 78 Wing during the invasion of Tarakan, Borneo. By war’s end he was credited with ten enemy aircraft officially destroyed; 19.5 unofficially. He attributed his survival to ‘a huge great heap of luck,’ the trick being ‘not to be where the bullet hits’ (Arthur 1989, 60).

After his appointment was terminated in February 1946 Arthur served in the RAAF Reserve, worked as a registrar at the progressive Koornong Free Expression School, Warrandyte, Victoria, in clerical positions at the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, Melbourne, and the School of Pacific Administration, Sydney, and as a dairy farmer on 450 acres (182 ha) at Bunyip in Gippsland, Victoria. With the assistance of Gorton, who was then the minister for the navy, he secured a position in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) (1960–64), advising on a dairy project as part of the Colombo Plan. There, in September 1961 he was captured and held to ransom for three days by the Viet Cong who interrogated and sought to indoctrinate him until Australian embassy staff secured his release in exchange for a typewriter and other supplies. He refused his own liberation until his Vietnamese interpreter’s release was also secured. Remaining in Vietnam until 1967, while manager of the Animal Food Division, Saigon Feather Mills, he claimed to have sold duck feathers to the United States Navy, which used them to make life jackets. Moving with his family to the Northern Territory, his responsibilities included working as a Darwin representative for Peko-Wallsend Ltd, and for Ranger Uranium Mines Pty Ltd. Concurrently, he served on the board of the Northern Territory Port Authority, Darwin (1970–80), including as chairman (1975–80).

Described by one who knew him in his Northern Territory days as ‘a modest and gentle man’ (Forrest 2001, 24) whose speech and behaviour never hinted at his extraordinary war record, Arthur died of pneumonia on 23 December 2000 in Darwin, was cremated, and his remains interred at the Adelaide River war cemetery. He was survived by Lucille and their children, Haig, Michael, Fiona, and Peter. A 1958 portrait by Murray Griffin was acquired by the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, where ‘Polly,’ the Kittyhawk Arthur flew on 14 April 1943 at Milne Bay, was put on display.