War Stories as recalled by his son Tom

Dad’s 1939-45 War Stories Thomas Lodge M-P -1912/2000 (Dad) was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross (D.F.C.) medal in 1943 for his actions during the war. Dad rarely ever spoke about what happened to him during the war, as was the case for many decorated war veterans. However, he did speak to me briefly on several occasions at night when there were just the two of us having a few rum and ginger-ales over an open fire at the back of his Bogangar home.

BACKGROUND: Dad had an adventurous war, serving for a time initially with the South African Air Force (SAA) in Northern Africa then in the UK, Europe, India ( Bombay), USA (San Francisco) and after those, Australia in Dalby(Qld) and finally near Darwin, from where they carried out many bombing raids on Japanese shipping and strongholds around Indonesia.

These are three of his stories: Story 1, ‘Tich’ After dad finished his Navigator’s course and training in Australia, his first posting was to the South African (S.A.) Air Force on the front line of the North African campaign. There he met and shared a tent with a South African navigator, ‘Tich’. They became very good friends and shared the navigating role, flying in the S.A. squadron aircraft. These sorties undertook the very dangerous role of flying low over heavily defended enemy airfields and positions, because of the limited camera range at the time, while the Navigator took reconnaissance photos. Dysentery in this forward tent camp was also very common. One day, when Dad was due to fly out on an airfield reconnaissance mission, he was having a very bad case of dysentery. His mate, Tich, could not help but notice Dad’s unfitness for flying and said, “Hey, Tom, how about I take your place today and you take my place on tomorrow’s mission?”. Dad was very relieved with this suggestion and readily agreed. Tragically, both the aircraft and ‘Tich’ never returned from that mission Dad was scheduled to join.

Story 2 -The ‘Gurkha’ Soldiers These soldiers Dad considered to be possibly the stealthiest, deadliest and best he had ever seen. They were from Nepal. They apparently were not very tall but muscular, beautifully coordinated and had this the unique, ghost like ability to creep up on their prey in the dark without detection. Dad was very pleased they were on the same side. Being on the Allies front line, these Gurkhas would leave camp and head for the enemy front lines around dusk each night and return just before or at dawn. Their mission was to sneak up and, as quietly as possible, kill as many of the enemy as they could find. On their return in those early hours of the morning, the guards initially would ask them if they had any success. They apparently responded by saying, “Yes, I killed 1” and “I killed 2”, etc. etc.. On one of these mornings a guard said, “I can’t/ don’t believe what you’re telling us”. They responded by saying, “We will bring back proof next time”. This they did, for on the very next morning when they returned they produced the ears of their overnight enemy victims. No one ever asked them for proof again.

Story 3 Foreword: During the WWW 2, there was definitely no GPS for the Australian, English and SA navigators. They did all their calculations by looking at either the sun, stars or various landmarks etc., also by using a compass to fix their positions. An unforgettable flight: In a bombing mission out of England, one of the crew suddenly noticed 2 German fighter planes. They were a fair distance away but closing fast on their slow moving bomber. This would usually mean that they were doomed. Their only salvation was a thick bank of cloud off to the left. Thankfully they reached the cloud before the very efficient German fighters caught up to them. Once inside this cloud, they took evasive action by changing direction and heights frequently. This required Dad to navigate the flight without external landmarks and with constantly changing altitude and direction, just using his mathematics and compass.

After a period of time, using these evasive tactics, Dad realised they had escaped from these highly skilled German fighters. The Captain and crew were amazed that Dad had bought them out exactly on target using precise calculations with the constantly changing variables and had saved the crew and aircraft.

Dad was awarded the DFC for many dangerous flying missions and he thought this may have been one of the dangerous missions.