By John Bergin
When Australia entered the Second World War on September 3rd, 1939, James Nolan was determined to do his duty as a pilot.
He had experienced his first solo flight at the age of 14 behind the controls of a homebuilt Mignet Pou-du-Ciel, or Flying Flea.
'I flew it at a height of about five or six feet for over 20 minutes,' he recalls.
The budding aviator had racked up more than 11 hours of flying experience by the outbreak of the war, and immediately volunteered as a pilot. But his hopes were dashed when officials knocked back his application because of a lack of tertiary qualifications.
'The Air Force wouldn't accept me as a pilot,' he says.
'They wouldn't even believe that I could fly until a pilot officer that was in the recruiting office asked me a few questions about the Flying Flea, because it flies differently, it's rigged differently.'
Not to be thwarted, James joined the militia, then the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). He was bound for the Middle East when the supposedly impregnable stronghold of Singapore fell to the Japanese.
Once again, James found himself far away from the front lines. He was working as a Dispatch Writer in the RAAF in Broome when he decided to follow up his pilot application with his superiors.
The RAAF had lost a great deal of pilots during the Battle of Britain, and this time they weren't so discriminating.
'And, of course, I went in straight away,' says James.
One whirlwind training session and a bout of rheumatic fever later, James found himself a member of 5 Squadron, operating on and around Bouganville Island in the south-pacific.
'Of all the squadrons in the world that one could wish to be appointed to, 5 Squadron was the cream,' he says.
'I was proud to become a member of the squadron,' he adds.
James flew the Wirraway and the Boomerang, Australian-made general purpose aircraft. Having flown more sophisticated airplanes in the past, it was a change that took some getting used to.
'After having flown a Hurricane, it was like going from a Lamborghini to a Datson 4-cylinder,' he laughs.
It was here above the Melanesian archipelago that James was forced to bail out after his plane suffered 'all sorts of problems'.
James' parachute and dingy got stuck on the cockpit hatch during the ordeal, losing precious seconds. He eventually escaped his stricken craft at a height of less than 300 metres and travelling more than 600 kph.
'I could see the individual bubbles on the water, so I knew I didn't have much time,' he says with a wry smile.
'So I pulled the ripcord and the deceleration was so great that my flying boots and socks came off, and I hit the water so hard ... that it split the soles of me feet.'
James says it was only the parachute that stopped him from going 'straight down' to the bottom of the sea.
Little did he know that he had a long wait ahead of him before he would be rescued, as his wingman had failed to calculate his position correctly.
Bouganville is rich in gold, silver and copper, and the minerals affect the magnetic lines of force, distorting compass readings.
'My wingman wasn't real bright with navigation,' James recalls with fondness.
'He was a lovely man and an excellent pilot, but not a good navigator.'
'The magnetic lines of force that operate the compass move out by about 19 degrees past Bouganville.'
The error saw rescue craft searching a patch of sea more than 60 kilometres away. James spent four days afloat, sometimes spotting his would-be rescuers, but never getting their attention.
It was in the middle of the night that James thought he had begun to hear voices.
'And I thought, 'you poor bastard, this is what must happen just before you die,' ' he says.
This was no hallucination, however; the voices belonged to two indigenous islanders paddling in an outrigger canoe.
'They had no English, they just took the lanyard off my dinghy attached it to their Lakatoi, and started paddling back,' says James.
'So they paddled right back through the night, and right through the next day.'
James says he avoided being captured by Japanese patrols because the islanders took him to a local leper settlement.
Contrary to popular belief, leprosy is not highly contagious, with more than 95 per cent of people immune, but the age-old social stigma held the enemy at bay.
'Now, these blokes were pretty smart cookies because if there is one place the Japanese wouldn't go, that was a leper settlement,' he says.
James was eventually reunited with Australian forces, but dismisses his experience as 'routine'.
'Some of the young ones joined the squadron one day and they were gone the next,' he says.
'Didn't even get a chance to know their Christian names - and in the end, you didn't ask.
' 'Mate'. It was better. Better that you didn't know.'
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Now that is a true Pilot
matthewbrooker3 5 months ago
@nicholasgmg10yutube Lest we forget
MrAeroguard 1 year ago
Four days in shark infested waters and he gets picked up by a couple of natives in a canoe... the truth is definitely stranger than fiction.
outrider30 1 year ago
go the aussie pilots
assassinwarz 2 years ago
Less we forget
nicholasgmg10yutube 2 years ago