F/O. Eric William "Hoot" Gibson DFC.
Royal Air Force 115 Squadron
from:Yallourn, Australia
My father initially joined the Australian Army in 1940, but decided he wanted to fly to war instead of walking, so joined the RAAF in early 1941. His initial training was in Tasmania and then advanced training in Canada. He was then posted to 623 Sqn at Downham Market where he only completed 2 gardening sorties on Stirlings before it was disbanded.
He was then transferred to 115 Squadron at Witchford where he completed his tour of 30 operations in June 1944. His log book records at least two attacks by enemy night fighters and another is confirmed by gunners reports.
At the end of his tour, he was posted to several training units as a flying instructor and managed to survive them as well. He was awarded the DFC in 1944. Whilst he didn't speak much about the war on his return or in later years, he did comment about two particular raids to Nuremberg and Leipzig which were particularly costly to Bomber Command. He also mentioned another occasion where he was forced to land at Downham Market as there was an enemy fighter in the circuit at Witchford. This fighter was responsible for the destruction of two of 115 Squadron's returning aircraft.
The only other trip he mentioned was one where, on their return to base, they found an incendiary bomb lodged in the engine housing of the Lancaster, obviously dropped from an aircraft above. Luckily, it hadn't ignited. I still have the nose weight from that bomb with the date 1943 cast into it. The bomb had been defused by armourers and the nose weight given to Dad's Canadian tail gunner who surprised Dad with it when my parents visited him in Canada.
Dad returned to Australia in 1945 where he was a power station control room supervisor until retirement. He died in 1999 at the age of 83 years of age. He never flew an aircraft again on his return to Australia but retained a keen interest in aviation. I recall him saying that when he was a young lad, he had seen Charles Kingsford Smith's aircraft in western Victoria when it was doing joy rides to help finance his exploits.
