The late Kevin Riordan was known to many as a Shepparton community man.
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From 1965 he served 25 years on Shepparton City Council and was mayor three times. The boards of Shepparton and Mooroopna hospitals, water utilities, Rotary and countless other local organisations all benefited from his no-nonsense, strong-willed and essentially decent approach to life.
But before all this, as a young man Kevin Francis Riordan had lived another, very different, life — as a World War II Spitfire pilot flying over the battlefields of Europe. His mission: to help halt the deadly Nazi war machine.
Like so many war heroes, Kevin didn’t talk much about his military exploits until later in life when his family persuaded him to write down his experiences. The result was a memoir — A Wing and a Prayer — written just before his death at the age of 80 in 2002. The memoir remains unpublished, but details feature heavily in Benalla airman Joseph Mack’s new book Strong to Serve, due to be published in March 2022.
John Lewis talked to Kevin’s son Brian, who provided access to his father’s remarkable memoir.
Kevin Riordan recounts a childhood memory to explain his lifelong fascination with flying.
“The story begins when I was about 10 years of age. One day I took unauthorised leave of absence from school. I went home and opened my money box, then I rode my bike five kilometres out to Hawkins paddock where I handed over my money and received in exchange a ticket that entitled me to ride with Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith in the Southern Cross. From that moment I knew that I must fly.”
When war broke out in 1939 Kevin was just 17 years old. It took him 12 months of pleading before his parents would allow him to sign up for the Royal Australian Air Force.
His first application failed because he had a myopic astigmatism in his right eye. He was told to wear a patch on his left eye to strengthen the weaker one. He did this for three months and re-applied successfully.
However, a failed maths test showed he had no hope of becoming a pilot and he was destined to become a member of ground support staff. He was granted a retest and studied intensively for weeks. On his second attempt he passed with a score of 98 per cent.
He was eventually posted to England where he served with the RAF’s 130 “Punjab” Squadron flying the legendary Spitfire.
Kevin took part in many historic battles, including D-Day on June 6, 1944, when the Allied forces mounted the world-changing invasion of Europe.
He flew one of the first Spitfires over the beachhead before dawn on that historic day, then went on to fly a further 23 days straight, escorting bombers and patrolling the beach. He was shot down once, landed safely on a makeshift airstrip behind the beachhead and was flown back to England in a slower Avro Anson training aircraft.
“That was a terrifying thought to have to travel in a war zone in an unarmed aircraft which flew at about 120mph,” Kevin wrote.
His memoir includes several hair-raising episodes recalled by his son Brian.
Brian said his father claimed to be the only person to actually bend the fuselage of a Spitfire without hitting anything.
“Apparently he was strafing a German convoy at tree-top level and became so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t see a bend in the road. Suddenly he was face to face with a brick chimney.
“He said the Spitfire’s Rolls-Royce engine was so powerful and the turn so steep that he actually twisted the aircraft’s fuselage. None of the ground staff would believe him, but tests finally proved the plane was bent beyond repair and was assigned to the scrap heap,” Brian said.
Brian recalled another incident he said would today be described as “high risk adolescent behaviour”.
“This one saw him in Germany, low-flying beside a railway embankment. He said there were three nuns wheeling bicycles along the tracks. He was so low that he had to look up to wave at them. They waved back and he was gone in a flash,” Brian said.
In his memoir Kevin describes a training mission in which a wing commander was forced to bail out of his aircraft after being accidentally hit by live ammunition.
“There are three methods of leaving a Spitfire. One was to undo all your equipment, open the canopy and dive over the side. This method created the danger of hitting the tail plane, or fin, with possible fatal consequences. The second was to undo all your equipment, open the canopy, push the stick forward quickly and be ejected like an ejection seat. This method also had the possibility of hitting the fin and tail plane.
“The third method and probably the safest, was to open the canopy, disconnect all equipment, roll the aircraft on its back and release the safety harness. If you were in control of the aircraft this was considered by many to be the preferred method.
“The Winco chose the last method and left the aircraft safely. His parachute opened and the danger appeared to be over. However, he landed in the middle of the Humber river and was drowned. He was not wearing his Mae West and was not carrying a life raft. A tragic way to end such a brilliant career,” Kevin wrote.
Other hair-raising accounts include defending London from attacks by German flying “buzz” bombs. This involved speeding next to them at more than 700km/h and flipping them over with a wing to send them off course.
Kevin and fellow Aussie pilot Fred Riley also took part in a dangerous mission to destroy one floor of a Phillips engineering factory in Eindhoven, Holland. The factory was being used to manufacture sophisticated electrical parts for new aircraft.
Kevin takes up the story:
“It had been decided not to bomb the factory, but to destroy the one floor which was being used. The factory was four stories, the Germans were using the third floor.
“We were to destroy the third floor by machine gun and cannon fire through the windows. The (Phillips) management was to use some pretext to evacuate the building so there would be no loss of life.
“It was a tall order — we would have to open fire at maximum range to give ourselves time to clear the building. There was no way we could practice, so it was a matter of ‘go in cold’,” he wrote.
“At the appointed time we arrived over the target, assumed line-astern formation about 200 yards apart and took turns attacking the third floor. We continued this until we had used all our ammunition, then returned to base. The information was that the operation had been most successful.”
Kevin said he and other pilots who took part in the mission were rewarded with a new piece of cutting-edge technology from the Phillips engineering company — an electric razor.
Brian said when the family finally convinced Kevin to sit down and write his memoir, they were amazed at their father’s exploits.
“You just realise how lucky he was to come back. So many young men lost their lives — they were only in their early 20s,” he said.
Brian said his father didn’t fly much when he returned home to Shepparton and married his sweetheart Lorraine.
Not surprisingly, nothing could match the speed and power of a Spitfire.
“When he went up in a Cessna he said it was boring,” Brian said.
Lorraine was also not exactly enthusiastic about her husband getting back in the pilot’s seat.
“She said ‘you’ve used every bit of flying luck you’re ever going to have, mate’,” Brian said.
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