This article was published online in 2024
Noel Norman Parker (1916–1996), air force officer and airline pilot, was born on 8 September 1916 at Crookwell, New South Wales, second of three children of Gerald Oswald Parker, butcher, and his wife Ruby Florence, née McCarthy, both born in New South Wales. Educated at Crookwell Public and Goulburn High schools, Noel cut short his formal education after his father was declared bankrupt in 1927. Young Parker later found work as a porter and clerk with New South Wales Government Railways at Narrabri and Riverstone. As an amateur boxer, he was part of the State Railways Institute team that competed in Brisbane in July 1935. On 26 November 1938 he married Gwendoline Malila Stocks, a telephonist; the service was conducted by her father, a clergyman, at the Methodist church, Wollongong.
Parker enrolled in the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve in Sydney on 14 January 1941, then on 16 August enlisted in the Citizen Air Force as air crew. He completed elementary flight training at Tamworth, then earned his pilot’s wings on 28 August 1942 at the Royal Canadian Air Force base, St Hubert, Quebec, and undertook further training in Britain from November. Promoted to temporary flight sergeant in February 1943, he qualified on Wellington and Stirling bombers, and was posted to No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron, Royal Air Force, at RAF Mepal, Cambridgeshire, in September. Appointed as a pilot officer in October 1943, he flew ten operations with No. 75 Squadron.
On 19 November 1943 Parker was captain of a Stirling bomber conducting a raid on Leverkusen in Germany’s Rhineland when his plane was attacked and disabled by a Messerschmitt Bf 110 night-fighter over Belgium. He ordered his crew to abandon the burning aircraft before he himself was blown out of it: ‘I was just adjusting my own parachute when an explosion occurred and the next thing I knew was that I was on the ground’ (NAA A705). Regaining consciousness alone near the village of Horrues, with a fractured neck and ribs he evaded capture and, with assistance from locals and Belgian resistance groups, reached neutral Spain on 1 January 1944.
Returning to England via Gibraltar on 6 February 1944, Parker immediately resumed flying duties. He volunteered for Pathfinder Force—a formation of elite airmen who flew ahead of the main bomber force to find and mark targets with flares. Having been promoted to acting flight lieutenant and posted to No. 97 (Straits Settlement) Squadron, RAF, at Coningsby in July 1944, he flew operations in Lancasters as the focus of Allied operations shifted from supporting the invasion of Normandy to targeting Germany’s petroleum and industrial centres.
Promoted to acting squadron leader in October 1944, Parker became deputy flight commander and master bomber, directing aircraft to their objectives during bombing raids. For his service during this period, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in December 1944, and in August 1945 a Bar to the DFC as he continued to fly sorties against the enemy. After forty-five missions, he returned to Australia in March 1945. He was promoted again to acting squadron leader in October, and his RAAF appointment was terminated on 11 December.
By 1946 Parker had become a commercial airline pilot with Australian National Airways, flying charter flights in DC4s between Sydney and London via Singapore, Colombo, and Rome. From 1951 he flew for Trans Australia Airlines, captaining a range of aircraft including DC3s, DC4s, DC6s, Fokker Friendships, Electras, DC9s, and Boeing 727s. Between 1976 and his retirement in 1985, he ferried Patenavia P.68 business aircraft for H. C. Sleigh Aviation Ltd, from Italy to Melbourne via Karachi, Calcutta, and Singapore.
After the dissolution of his marriage in 1950, Parker married Gabrielle Ruth Payne, a typist, on 24 May that year, at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Canberra. They resided at Essendon West, Keilor, and then at Tooborac, Victoria. In the early 1990s, he attended a squadron reunion in England where he contacted Otto-Heinrich Fries, the German night-fighter pilot who had claimed his Short Stirling over Belgium. Parker allegedly thundered, ‘So you’re the bastard that shot me, are you?’ (Parker, pers. comm.). The pair subsequently maintained a friendly correspondence.
One of Parker’s RAAF commanding officers praised him for his popularity among all ranks and his ‘cheerful and willing disposition’ (NAA A705). He died at Fitzroy, Melbourne, on 13 December 1996, and was survived by Gabrielle, and their sons John, David, and Roderick; his ashes were interred beside those of his father in Woden cemetery, Canberra.
Aaron Pegram, 'Parker, Noel Norman (1916–1996)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/parker-noel-norman-33195/text41413, published online 2024, accessed online 3 November 2024.
Family collection
8 September,
1916
Crookwell,
New South Wales,
Australia
13 December,
1996
(aged 80)
Fitzroy, Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia