TO HELL AND BACK
I wanted to know what my father experienced in WWII
My young sons, Ashley and Bryden, listened intently to their grandfather, Maxwell Norris, as he regaled them with stories of the war.
With his hands in position, he demonstrated how he’d shot down a eet of Luftwa e, Germany’s air defence, from a Halifax bomber.
Yeah, all right Dad,
I thought, smiling.
He had a habit of embellishing his war stories.
My father had served with the bomber command of the Royal Air Force and own many operations over Germany during WWII.
As I had a PhD in military history, I was well aware he’d never personally shot down any aircraft.
When I was little, Dad rarely spoke to me about his service.
He was angry and often hid away in his garage, unable to reach out emotionally.
As I matured I recognised he was su ering PTSD from his two years under RAF command.
“Once your father returned, he took back his job at the Commonwealth Bank,” my mum, Hilda, told me one day.
A woman had come into the bank with a white feather, a symbol of cowardice at the time.
Ignorant of the fact that he’d just returned, she scolded him for not serving his country.
“He walked out of the bank that day and never returned,” Mum lamented.
He’d put his life on the line for his country and now nobody would stop to hear his story.
Dad struggled with employment after that.
Following the adrenaline rush of ying bombers, desk jobs were too mundane.
He also su ered multiple injuries sustained during his service.
His plane had crashlanded on return to England, leaving him with lifelong back pain.
Years later, he developed a cancerous kidney which he knew was from the hundreds of missions he’d undertaken.
“Our return operations to Berlin were eight hours long,” he told me later in life, “and we had no way to relieve ourselves.”
When Dad passed in 2010, aged 89, I considered how his years in service had impacted his entire life and wanted to nd out more.
So, in 2011, I arranged interviews with a number of WWII Royal Australian Air Force servicemen.
One veteran I met was Bert Stobart, 89, in Melbourne.
He’d joined the RAAF, hoping to become a pilot but was instead put into a gunner position.
“e crew I’d initially wanted to be a part of were killed on their rst operation,” he told me.
Hearing his depiction of the harsh conditions, long hours and loss of comrades, I thought about Dad.
No wonder he was so angry.
“You might be interested in my book,” Bert continued. “It’s called My Trip Abroad.”
He grabbed a large scrapbook from his bookshelf. Before showing me its contents, he explained how it came to be.
One night in September 1943, en route to Berlin, Bert’s crew had just crossed the Dutch coast when they were shot from below by an ME-110 night ghter.
“e starboard engines burst into ames which spread rapidly along the wing,” he said.
Bert had grabbed a parachute, kicked out the rear door, and watched the other gunner fall through the opening before somersaulting out himself.
Without time for a safe landing, Bert hit the ground fast and was knocked unconscious.
“When I came to, the bomber and crew were nowhere to be seen,” he continued. “e next few hours were a blur, but I think a Dutch policeman took me to his home.”
Next thing, German soldiers bundled him into a car and took him to the prisoner of war camp, Stalag IV-B.
“It looked like a dirty big cage,” he recalled.
Bert was in that cage for the next two years and the scrapbook was his record of that time.
It contained depictions of the measly rations they received – soup with some horse meat, often with bones and maggots – and their living quarters, long huts with broken windows and temperatures dropping to 16 below.
“I asked fellow POWs to write or draw something in my book,” he explained. “It’s what kept me going.”
As I icked through, some pages contained beautiful paintings by prisoners, others humorous cartoons making light of the situation.
I knew I was looking at a true gem of history.
As I was leaving, Bert pointed to an old portrait of his wife, Noel, hanging in the entryway.
“One of the prisoners painted that,” he said. “She was my ancée at the time and all I had was a small photo of her for him to go o .”
e artist had made paint from charcoal and whatever else he could
nd to create the beautiful work.
“I married Noel as soon as I made it home,” Bert said proudly.
I published the experiences of the RAAF servicemen in my book, A Grave Too Far Away, in 2012, but I always wanted to do more with Bert’s story, and we kept in touch.
I was saddened to hear of his passing in September 2015, aged 94, just a few months after his beloved Noel had died.
After such a struggle for Bert to return to Australia and marry Noel, it was touching to know they’d had a solid innings together.
During COVID lockdowns, I began writing in detail about the POW experiences of RAAF servicemen, focusing on Bert’s story.
In 2022, my book Fury to Hell was published which included many tales, drawings and paintings from Bert’s scrapbook.
During the launch, one of his granddaughters approached me.
“We’re delighted Grandad’s story is being told,” she said, beaming. “We had no idea what he went through.” at’s true of many families of servicemen and women in my father’s generation.
But if we start asking them the right questions, we’ll be amazed by the incredible stories they have to tell.
The engines burst into flames