Major Celebrations for Ballarat Heritage Week
The Ballarat Branch will sponsor a major celebration to be held in the Airport Precinct over the weekend of 17-18 May as part of the overall Ballarat Heritage Week celebrations.
Ballarat Branch occupies Hut 48 in the Airport Precinct, being one of the P huts and other buildings constructed to house the thousands of trainers, staff and trainees of the WWII No. 1 Wireless Air Gunners School.
Ballarat Airport precinct contains Australia’s most intact WWII site where over 6000 trainees passed through the school between 1940 and 1945.
The theme for the weekend will be “Entertainment of the Air”.
The weekend of 17-18 May coincides with the 82nd anniversary of the famous Dam Busters incident of WWII.
In late March 1943, a new elite squadron was formed to carry out a raid on three main targets - the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams. The Möhne dam was a curved 'gravity' dam and was 40m high and 650m long.
617 Squadron was led by 24-year old Wing Commander Guy Gibson and was made up of aircrew from Britain, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and Australia.
The drum-shaped bomb (codenamed 'Upkeep') needed to be dropped from a height of 60 feet (18m), and at a ground speed of 232mph. The bomb would spin backwards across the surface of the water before reaching the dam. Its residual spin would then drive the bomb down the wall of the dam before exploding at its base.
Australian Pilot Officer Frederick Spafford trained in 1WAGS course number 6 flew with Wing Commander Gibson, who regarded Spafford [Spam] as the best bomb-aimer there was.
The operations were successful with Spafford being awarded the DFC and Gibson the Victoria Cross.
Events to be held over the Heritage Weekend
BAFA Flight 1705-01 Essendon to Ballarat Return
The Ballarat branch of the Air Force Association (BAFA) is chartering the Shortstop Jetcharter (SJC) Douglas DC-3 VH-OVM to operate Essendon-Ballarat return flights on Saturday 17th May and Sunday 18th May as part of Ballarat Heritage Week.
BAFA is selling seats on these flights via the Friends of the RAAF Museum Inc.
Anyone wishing to purchase a flight please contact Ballarat Branch’s Peter Dowling on 0418 281 775.