Australian Dictionary of Biography

Jack Sandord, n.d.

courtesy of the Sandford family

Jack Tipton Sandford (1915–1997), air force officer, chartered accountant, and businessman, was born on 13 April 1915 at Armadale, Victoria, youngest of two children of Victorian-born parents Cecil Everard Sandford, schoolteacher, and his wife Florence Emma, née Tipton. Jack was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne (1922–32). Although as an adult he enjoyed tennis, swimming, skiing, and golf, at school he was more academically inclined than athletic, proving competent in economics and commercial subjects. In 1931 he successfully sat the Leaving certificate and left Scotch in May 1932. He commenced accountancy studies at the Hemingway Robertson Institute, and in 1934 received the highest aggregate in Victoria and the third highest in Australia for the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants course.

While employed with General Motors-Holden’s Ltd, Sandford joined the Citizen Military Forces in April 1939. Following the outbreak of World War II, he applied for a commission in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and enlisted on 18 September 1940. He trained in Australia and from January 1941 in Canada under the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). Commissioned in May 1941, he embarked for Britain the following month. After operational training, he was posted in October 1941 to No. 25 Squadron, Royal Air Force (RAF), a night-interceptor unit equipped with Bristol Beaufighters. He was promoted to flying officer in November 1941.

With the entry of Japan into the war, and then the bombing of Darwin in February 1942, the Australian government prioritised formation of home defence squadrons. EATS pilots serving in the RAF would form their nucleus. Flying Officer Sandford was considered one of the most experienced RAAF pilots available for return to Australia and on 20 June 1942 was attached to No. 30 Squadron, RAAF, a long-range Beaufighter squadron based at Richmond, New South Wales. Two days later, after a ferry flight, he was court-martialled for flying below the prescribed minimum height of five hundred feet (152.4 m). At a time when training accident numbers were high this incident was treated seriously. Convicted, he was severely reprimanded and his flying logbook endorsed. Ironically, skill in flying low would later prove indispensable to him on operational service.

In September 1942, under the control of the Fifth Air Force, United States Army Air Forces, No. 30 Squadron moved to Port Moresby, tasked with attacking Japanese aerodromes, supply dumps, troop and gun positions, and transports such as barges. Sandford considered the Beaufighter a ‘thrilling and satisfactory aircraft to fly to war’ (Parnell 1980, 4), particularly suited to dangerous treetop-level attacks. He proved an adept pilot, especially during the battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943. Fellow squadron members admired ‘Sandy’s’ flying ability and tenacity, and in April 1943 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

His tour completed, Sandford was promoted to flight lieutenant and in April 1943 commenced instructional duties at No. 5 Operational Training Unit, Forest Hill, New South Wales. He was posted back to No. 30 Squadron in January 1944, based on the island of Kiriwina and then at Tadji on the north coast of New Guinea. Following the accidental death of the squadron’s commanding officer in June 1944, Sandford was appointed his temporary replacement and was promoted to acting squadron leader in August 1944. The squadron moved in July 1944 to Noemfoor in the Netherlands East Indies as part of an all-Beaufighter attack force under the control of No. 77 Wing, RAAF, much of its work being carried out at night. Sandford led by example, taking the most dangerous sorties for himself. His workload was prodigious; during this second tour he carried out eighty operational flights. In October 1944 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in recognition of his courage and leadership, and his having destroyed, probably destroyed, or severely damaged one enemy aircraft on the ground, seventy-eight barges, and forty-five trucks.

Sandford left No. 30 Squadron in October 1944 and, following a six-month posting to RAAF Headquarters in Melbourne, was demobilised on 1 June 1945. On 14 August, at Fremantle’s St John’s Church of England, he married Joy Essie Findlay of East Fremantle, with whom he had three children, Peter, Virginia, and Jonathan. In October he became a partner at the Melbourne accountancy firm of Cleveland, Son and Hislop. He was appointed to a commission in the RAAF Reserve on 28 July 1950 in which he served with the temporary rank of squadron leader. After he resigned from the partnership in July 1953 he ran a bus service in Toorak. In 1957 the family moved to Perth, Western Australia, where he was an accountant with the Pastoralists’ and Graziers’ Association of Western Australia. In 1958 he became secretary of the association, retiring in 1964. Sandford was placed on the RAAF Retired List in April 1967.

As the owner and licensee (from 1963) of the historic Crossing Inn at Fitzroy Crossing on Bunuba Country in Western Australia’s Kimberley region, Sandford benefited from a local population boom as Aboriginal people were forced off surrounding cattle stations following the extension of award wages to Aboriginal stockmen initiated by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in 1965. By the late 1980s, his business interests there included a supermarket and other shops, and a motel and caravan park to cater for an increasing tourist trade. But the thriving inn, one of several now operating in the Kimberley region that made alcohol more readily available, contributed to serious social disruption among the expanding Aboriginal communities, clouding Sandford’s legacy in the town. With the Crossing Inn under management by his son Jonathan, in the early 1970s he had returned to live in Perth. He and Joy divorced and, now remarried to Helen Childs from Queensland, he sold his Fitzroy Crossing holdings in 1989.

Handsome, with well-defined facial features, Sandford was 5 ft 8 and a half inches (174 cm) tall, had dark grey eyes, a medium complexion, and dark brown hair. He died in Perth on 26 September 1997 and was cremated. He was survived by his second wife, his three children, and three stepchildren. His medals and a framed photographic portrait were lodged with the Aviation Heritage Museum, Bull Creek, Western Australia.