Vale Peter Ilbery

Saturday, 16 December 2017

Vale Peter Ilbery

Vale Peter Ilbery OAM, former 455 Squadron pilot.

I owe him much.

Peter had written a couple of books on the Empire Air Training Scheme (Hatching an Air Force and Empire Airmen Strike Back) and, while researching Clive Caldwell Air Ace, I spoke to him about the scheme as well Caldwell as a leader and the nature of leadership. Peter, who had served with 455 Squadron during the war, compared Caldwell’s leadership practice with that of 455’s one-time CO Jack Davenport.

Sometime after finishing CCAA, aviation author Lex McAulay, who assumed I would continue to research Australian pilots, emailled me a list of possible ‘candidates’. Jack Davenport was on the list. Next thing I knew, Peter was on the phone saying he had heard I was going to write about Jack Davenport. And it seemed I was!

Peter, who were there from the beginning of Jack Davenport Beaufighter Leader, offered me encouragement and moral support throughout and provided a sounding board to some of my ideas. He ‘volunteered’ to read early drafts and wrote the forward. He was there at the launch. I owe him so much.

While I know (sadly now, knew) him as a former beaufighter pilot and mentor, others will remember him as a medical doctor, radiation researcher, radiobiologist and radiodiagnostician, historian of the Empire Air Training Scheme and the man who established the Commonwealth Air Memorial at Dallachy. Vale Peter 10 December 2017.