Australian Dictionary of Biography

Ted c 1943

courtesy of Graham Eagleton

William Edmund Eagleton (1917–2000), air force officer, personnel manager, and war veterans’ advocate, was born on 6 February 1917 at Clarence Town, New South Wales, elder child of Edward Eagleton, sawyer, and his wife Madeline ‘Lena’, née Fishburn, both New South Wales-born. Ted, as he came to be known in adult life, was raised in Sydney’s western suburbs and attended several local schools before completing the Intermediate certificate at Christian Brothers’ High School, Lewisham, in 1933. Unable to afford further schooling, in 1934 he became an apprentice die-setter with S. T. Leigh & Co. Pty Ltd, printers and lithographers. He enjoyed an active social life and was close to his family, losing his mother in March 1939.

In July 1940 Eagleton was accepted for the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve, and attended preparatory night classes at Newington College until his RAAF call-up on 3 March 1941. Following elementary flying training, he sailed for Canada in July, earning his pilot’s wings at No. 1 Service Flying Training School at Camp Borden, Ontario. He was posted to the United Kingdom in December 1941 and, following a bitterly cold winter spent at a reception centre, volunteered for the Middle East, arriving in February 1942. After several months of frustrating inaction in Egypt, he was returned to the United Kingdom, where he resumed training in January 1943. He became captain of a Wellington bomber crew in March, and in June was posted to No. 466 Squadron RAAF, at Leconfield, East Riding of Yorkshire.

Eagleton’s first operational mission as first pilot was a minelaying sortie to Brest, France, on the night of 5–6 July 1943, followed by bombing raids over Germany that included the Operation Gomorrah attacks on Hamburg of July–August 1943. He was commissioned in September, shortly before the squadron converted to Halifax bombers. In January 1944, he was grounded after being injured in a car accident. Promoted to flying officer in March, he returned to No. 466 Squadron on 12 May, just in time for the squadron’s move to nearby Driffield. After an assignment testing new aircraft, he resumed operational flying and was promoted to flight lieutenant in June, becoming acting squadron leader the same month. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in August 1944 in another sortie off Brest, when bad weather forced him to descend almost to sea level to drop his mines in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire. An ‘exceptionally capable flight commander’ (NAA A9300), he completed his second tour in February 1945, and was awarded a Bar to the DFC in July for ‘outstanding courage and enthusiasm which have set an excellent example’ (NAA A9300).

While a bombing instructor, on 23 August 1945 Eagleton married Scottish-born Catherine May ‘Tommy’ Cameron, a sergeant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, at the Braes of Rannoch Parish Church in Perthshire, Scotland. Returning to Australia in January 1946, he was demobilised on 25 February with the rank of acting squadron leader, and returned to his pre-war job. Tommy joined him in Sydney in April, and the first of their three children was born three months later. In 1947 Eagleton accepted a ground staff role with Australian National Airways Pty Ltd and, after studying management part time at Sydney Technical College, switched to the personnel management section, the start of a career in this field that suited his down-to-earth and outgoing personality. He moved to Rolls-Royce Engineering in 1954; to Tulloch Ltd in 1960, where he bore the stress of this company’s persistent industrial unrest; and in 1963 to Trans-Australia Airlines.

A founding member of the 466/462 Squadrons Association in 1946, Eagleton also joined the Australian Flying Corps and Royal Australian Air Force Association, becoming vice-president of its New South Wales division (1961–81), a life member in 1972, and a life vice-president in 1981. He also served on the council of the Australian Air League, and became federal president in 1965. For three decades he was chief marshal of the Air Force contingent for Sydney’s Anzac Day marches. In 1976 he was appointed MBE for his work for ex-servicemen.

Retiring from the workforce in 1981, but remaining involved with veterans’ associations, Eagleton played lawn bowls, enjoyed socialising with wartime comrades, and travelled extensively with Tommy. After moving into a retirement village at Castle Hill in 1991, he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, yet remained active until shortly before his death from respiratory failure on 26 February 2000. He was cremated. This dedicated and popular ex-serviceman and family man was survived by his wife, and sons Graham, Donald, and Cameron.