Caldwell Clive @·AIRCRAFTUBE

  • Clive Caldwell Clive Caldwell
    Clive Caldwell
  • Clive Caldwell (1941) Clive Caldwell (1941)
    Clive Caldwell (1941)
  • With the P-40 Tomahawk that brought him home<br>after the dogfight of 29 August 1941 With the P-40 Tomahawk that brought him home<br>after the dogfight of 29 August 1941
    With the P-40 Tomahawk that brought him home
    after the dogfight of 29 August 1941
  • Caldwell (far left) and No. 112 Squadron pilots<br>by a shark-mouth Kittyhawk (January 1942) Caldwell (far left) and No. 112 Squadron pilots<br>by a shark-mouth Kittyhawk (January 1942)
    Caldwell (far left) and No. 112 Squadron pilots
    by a shark-mouth Kittyhawk (January 1942)
  • Clive Caldwell (1942) Clive Caldwell (1942)
    Clive Caldwell (1942)
  • Strauss (Northern Territory), 25 April 1943:<br>No. 452 Squadron RAAF pilots Strauss (Northern Territory), 25 April 1943:<br>No. 452 Squadron RAAF pilots
    Strauss (Northern Territory), 25 April 1943:
    No. 452 Squadron RAAF pilots
  • At Strauss<br>(Northern Territory)<br>1943 At Strauss<br>(Northern Territory)<br>1943
    At Strauss
    (Northern Territory)
    1943
  • With Ron Cundy, "Smokey" Lumley<br>and Lyn Compton With Ron Cundy, "Smokey" Lumley<br>and Lyn Compton
    With Ron Cundy, "Smokey" Lumley
    and Lyn Compton
  • No. 452 Squadron RAAF Spitfire Mk.VIIIs,<br>part of Caldwell's No. 80 Wing No. 452 Squadron RAAF Spitfire Mk.VIIIs,<br>part of Caldwell's No. 80 Wing
    No. 452 Squadron RAAF Spitfire Mk.VIIIs,
    part of Caldwell's No. 80 Wing
  • Commanding No. 80 Wing,<br>with his ground crew Commanding No. 80 Wing,<br>with his ground crew
    Commanding No. 80 Wing,
    with his ground crew
  • His Spitfire Mk.VIII<br>on Morotai (Dec. 1944) His Spitfire Mk.VIII<br>on Morotai (Dec. 1944)
    His Spitfire Mk.VIII
    on Morotai (Dec. 1944)

Clive "Killer" Caldwell

Group Captain Clive Robertson Caldwell, DSO, DFC & Bar (28 July 1910 – 5 August 1994), nicknamed "Killer", was the leading Australian fighter ace of the Second World War. He is officially credited with 28.5 enemy aircraft destroyed in more than 300 operational sorties, to which are added six probables and 15 damaged. Among his victims was the German ace Erbo Graf von Kageneck.

Caldwell flew Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks and Kittyhawks in the North African Campaign, then Supermarine Spitfires in the South West Pacific. He was the highest-scoring P-40 pilot of any air force and the highest-scoring Allied pilot in North Africa. He commanded a Royal Air Force (RAF) squadron and two Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wings. His military career ended in controversy: he took part in the "Morotai Mutiny" of 1945 and was then court-martialled for trading liquor.

Early life

Clive Caldwell was born at Petersham (some sources say Lewisham), a suburb of Sydney, the only child of John Caldwell, a banker, and Annie Selina Smiles. He attended Albion Park School, Trinity Grammar School and Sydney Grammar School, where he rowed and sat on the games committee. He joined the Bank of New South Wales in 1928, resigned in 1931, worked for two years as a jackaroo, ran a garage in Darlinghurst with a friend and later became a commission agent. In 1938 he learned to fly with the Aero Club of New South Wales.

Second World War

Enlistment and training

Caldwell enlisted in the RAAF on 27 May 1940, determined to become a fighter pilot. Believing he was over the age limit for fighter training, he persuaded a pharmacist friend to alter his birth certificate, which explains why his date of birth is often given as 1911 or even 1912. On 13 April 1940 he had married Jean McIver Main, a nurse and the daughter of the chairman of the Australian Jockey Club. Trained under the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was commissioned in January 1941 and embarked for the Middle East on 3 February.

North Africa: No. 250 Squadron RAF

After a brief attachment to No. 73 Squadron RAF, which flew Hawker Hurricanes, Caldwell was posted to No. 250 Squadron RAF as it converted to the P-40 Tomahawk, one of the first units in the world to fly the type in combat. According to some accounts, on 6 June 1941, flying as wingman to Flying Officer Jack Hamlyn, he took part in the destruction of an Italian CANT Z.1007 bomber over Egypt, the first ever P-40 victory, although the claim was never officially recognised. The squadron then served briefly in the Syria-Lebanon campaign.

Caldwell found deflection shooting difficult and invented his own training method, "shadow shooting": he fired at the shadow of his own aircraft, or of a squadron mate's, on the desert floor. The technique was later adopted by all fighter squadrons of the Desert Air Force.

On 26 June 1941, escorting bombers over Gazala in Libya, he scored his first air victory on his 30th sortie, a Messerschmitt Bf 109E. On 4 July he saw a close friend, Pilot Officer Donald Munro, shot by a German pilot while descending under his parachute. According to his biographer Kristen Alexander, this episode hardened his attitude, and Caldwell himself later fired on enemy airmen who had bailed out. The nickname "Killer", popularised months later by press officers and journalists, also owed much to his habit of strafing enemy convoys with his leftover ammunition on the way back from missions. Caldwell disliked it.

On 29 August 1941, flying alone, he was attacked by two Bf 109s, one flown by the ace Werner Schröer. Wounded in three places and with his Tomahawk heavily damaged, he managed to turn on his attackers, shot down Schröer's wingman and damaged Schröer's aircraft before bringing his own back to base. On 23 November he shot down Hauptmann Wolfgang Lippert, commander of II./JG 27, who bailed out and died a few days later after the amputation of his legs. This action earned Caldwell the Distinguished Flying Cross.

On 5 December 1941 he claimed five Junkers Ju 87 Stukas destroyed in a few minutes, which earned him a Bar to his DFC (German records show fewer losses). On 24 December he engaged the Bf 109 of the German ace Erbo Graf von Kageneck, who was mortally wounded; Caldwell only claimed a "damaged" at the time, but post-war research credits him with the victory.

Commanding No. 112 Squadron RAF

In January 1942, promoted squadron leader, Caldwell took command of No. 112 Squadron RAF, famous for the shark's mouths painted on its Kittyhawks. He was the first graduate of the Empire Air Training Scheme to command an RAF squadron. The unit included Polish pilots, and his leadership earned him the Polish Cross of Valour (Krzyż Walecznych). In February 1942, leading eleven Kittyhawks of Nos. 112 and 3 (RAAF) Squadrons, he shot down from a near-vertical climb, his P-40 "hanging from its propeller", the Bf 109F of Leutnant Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt, who survived by crash-landing behind his own lines.

When Caldwell left the theatre in May 1942, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder described him as "an excellent leader and a first class shot". He had claimed 22 victories in North Africa, including ten Bf 109s and two Macchi C.202s, in some 550 flying hours.

United States and England

On his way back to Australia, Caldwell made a publicity tour of the United States. At the Curtiss-Wright plant in Buffalo, on 6 August 1942, he co-piloted the re-flight of a Curtiss C-46 Commando that had been belly-landed after a landing gear failure, and he also evaluated the North American P-51 Mustang, then under development. He then gained experience on Spitfires with No. 127 Wing at Kenley, in England.

Defence of Darwin: No. 1 Wing RAAF

In November 1942 Caldwell took command of No. 1 (Fighter) Wing, made up of No. 54 Squadron RAF and Nos. 452 and 457 Squadrons RAAF, all equipped with Spitfires. Promoted acting wing commander in January 1943, he led the wing to Darwin in the Northern Territory to counter the Japanese raids. Losses were heavy at first, owing to the inexperience of many pilots and to technical problems with the tropicalised Spitfire Mk.VC; the tactics of the wing, in particular during the engagement of 2 May 1943, were criticised by senior officers. On his first interception over Darwin, Caldwell shot down a Mitsubishi A6M Zero and a Nakajima B5N "Kate". His last victory came on 17 August 1943: a Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah" reconnaissance aircraft shot down over the Arafura Sea, bringing his tally of Japanese aircraft to 6.5. In later life he admitted that he often thought of a Japanese airman who had survived this last fight but could not be rescued.

After a period as chief instructor of No. 2 Operational Training Unit at Mildura, in Victoria, Caldwell was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in October 1943 for his leadership.

No. 80 Wing and the "Morotai Mutiny"

In May 1944 he returned to Darwin to command No. 80 (Fighter) Wing, equipped with Spitfire Mk.VIIIs, and was promoted acting group captain on 1 August 1944. In December 1944 the wing moved to Morotai, in the Dutch East Indies, within the Australian First Tactical Air Force. The Australian fighter squadrons there were relegated to ground-attack missions against bypassed Japanese positions, costly and strategically pointless. In April 1945 Caldwell and seven other senior officers tendered their resignations in protest: this was the "Morotai Mutiny". The inquiry led by Justice John Barry relieved three senior commanders of their posts and cleared the "mutineers", although Barry considered that Caldwell had been mainly concerned with his own prospects.

Caldwell was meanwhile charged over a liquor racket: alcohol flown in by RAAF aircraft had been traded with American units in exchange for goods and services. He did not deny the facts but said he had acted to obtain equipment his wing needed. Court-martialled in January 1946, he was found guilty and reduced to the rank of flight lieutenant, and left the service in March 1946.

Later life

Back in civilian life, Caldwell bought surplus aircraft and military equipment in the Philippines for resale in Australia. He then joined a Sydney cloth import/export company, of which he became managing director and later partner, and in 1957 founded Clive Caldwell (Sales) Pty Ltd, a fabrics business that expanded through subsidiaries worldwide. He avoided publicity, spoke modestly of his war record and was a keen golfer. He died of cancer in Sydney on 5 August 1994; he and his wife had no children. His medals are held by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Awards

  • Distinguished Service Order (DSO) - 1943.
  • Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Bar - 26 December 1941.
  • 1939-1945 Star, Air Crew Europe Star, Africa Star with "North Africa 1942-43" clasp, Pacific Star, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939-1945, Australia Service Medal 1939-45.
  • Polish Cross of Valour (Krzyż Walecznych) - 1942.

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