Australians in the BoB

[Kyt]

There is some interesting information on the BoB site about the nationalities of those who participated, and who are entitled to wear the Clasp (which was limited to Fighter crews of specific squadrons). Due to the nature of the Empire and the Dominions, it seems to be a rather complicated, and contraversial, topic - even after nearly 70 years.

One example is "who was Australian?":

In the list supplied by the Australian Archives, we find that there are 52 names of Australian pilots that served with Fighter Command in 1939 and 1940, yet only 21 are officially listed as being Australian, the others are recorded as being British. The main reason for this is that many that went to England to serve a short service commission with the RAF, they travelled on British passports which in those days the majority of residents either, from British families, coming from a British family, or as many Australians preferred to at the time, hold a passport of the mother country.

In this case, the RAF when establishing an airman's nationality were guided by the issuing authority of each airman's passport, and not the country of birth. Also, a number of airmen, although born in Australia and other commonwealth countries, lived in England for a number of years prior to the outbreak of WWII. A good example of this was F/Lt Richard Hillary, he was born in Sydney Australia but travelled to England with his father (a government official) when he was only three years of age. Here it is possible that he travelled to England on his fathers passport and was therefore regarded as a British citizen. It is unfortunate that the official records state that he is British, as Australians will always regard him as an Australian.

http://www.battleofbritain.net/0004.html
(Document 18 - scroll to the end of the page for the new window - includes a fuller explanationon the BoB Clasp entitlement)

[spidge]

Originally Posted by Kyt

There is some interesting information on the BoB site about the nationalities of those who participated, and who are entitled to wear the Clasp (which was limited to Fighter crews of specific squadrons). Due to the nature of the Empire and the Dominions, it seems to be a rather complicated, and contraversial, topic - even after nearly 70 years.

One example is "who was Australian?":



http://www.battleofbritain.net/0004.html
(Document 18 - scroll to the end of the page for the new window - includes a fuller explanationon the BoB Clasp entitlement)

Is there also a reverse anomaly here. When going through the RAAF deaths there were a large amount whose place of birth was Britain.

[Kyt]

Unfortunately, there are many anomolies that pertain to nationality, force joined and force served with. You highlight one such instance.

Another one that I haven't been able to decipher yet is the designation of Indians who served and died in the RAF, and yet are categorised as being RIAF on CWGC. The numbers are very small in comparison to other nationalities but still annoying.