War & conflict · People & lives

He won his first medal in the mud, then 12 kills in the air

Raymond Brownell was a Tasmanian accountant's clerk who ended up as one of Australia's more improbable First World War flying aces and, decades later, a senior air force commander. He joined the artillery in 1914, missed the Gallipoli landing itself because his accounting skills were needed at headquarters in Alexandria, but rejoined his battery there in mid-1915 and was among the last Australians evacuated. On the Western Front he won the Military Medal for keeping communications running under heavy shelling at Pozières, and in 1917 talked his way into a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps despite thousands of other applicants.

Flying Sopwith Camels, Brownell scored his first kill on his very first patrol and reached ace status before his squadron moved to Italy, where he shot down German ace Alwin Thurm and, over a three-month spree, brought his total to twelve confirmed victories, earning the Military Cross. A period of compassionate leave to see his dying mother in Tasmania nearly ended his flying career, and a bout of pneumonic influenza on the return voyage compounded matters; he briefly held an RAF commission before resigning to be near his mother again and returning home in 1919.

Brownell rejoined the fledgling RAAF in 1921 and spent the interwar years training cadets, commanding squadrons, and eventually setting up Western Australia's first air base at Pearce. In the Second World War he built an RAAF station in Singapore, then returned to Australia to run a training group and later Western Area command, organising defences around Perth against a feared Japanese raid that never came, work that earned him a CBE. His last wartime posting was commanding a newly formed group on Morotai, and he witnessed Japanese surrenders in several cities though he was bumped from the formal ceremony aboard USS Missouri in favour of a more senior officer. He retired in 1947, became a Perth stockbroker, and his memoir was published only after his death in 1974.

Brownell's ace tally was built largely over Italy, not the Western Front, after his squadron was moved there. His autobiography, titled From Khaki to Blue, appeared only after his death.

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