Pittwater Life April 2024 Issue

Roy’s century of memories
Extended family and around 50
friends gathered at the Avalon
home of RAF Flight Lieutenant Roy
Smith last month to celebrate his 100th
birthday.
As well as the RAF memorabilia laid
out on a table in the home, guests
saw Mr Smith’s personal
message from King
Charles III and the Queen
Consort.
“It was a very nice message,”
he said. “I thought it
and the Governor General’s
letter were very good.”
Daughter Deb Mundell
said in fact her father was
absolutely chuffed at the
Royal correspondence and
said the letter appeared
regularly when people visited
the house.
Mr Smith and family
moved to Australia from
England in 1962 when the
chartered surveyor took
over operations of a property consulting
firm.
Mr Smith said he was born into a
modest British family, although clearly
one in which the over-achieving gene
was strong. He said his sister was an
acclaimed ballet dancer, his younger
brother became a headmaster, and his
older brother was a British Ambassador
and a one-time head of MI5.
Alas, Mr Smith outlived his exceptional
siblings.
“It’s always been my ambition to
make 100 and follow in my mother’s
footsteps,” he said. “I must admit, I’ve
been counting down the years!”
Any secrets to longevity?
“Love is the biggest thing,” the father
of three said. “It binds together. And
from it you get peace and tranquillity.”
Mind you, having extraordinary good
fortune doesn’t go astray. Like when the
21-year-old pilot
cartwheeled an
impaired, flaming
four-engine
Halifax down a
runway at Shaibah,
Iraq. It was
in July 1945, and
HAPPY HUNDRED:
Roy Smith at home
at Avalon; young
Roy (on left)
during service in
World War II.
it was a miracle
that ‘Skipper’
and his crew survived.
Or when he flew his crew over ‘the
hump’, aka the Himalayas, and all
engines of his Halifax stopped working
– frozen after entering a sudden cloud
bank.
“The safety height was 17,000ft,” he
recalled. “We couldn’t see and were
going down… 15, 14, 13, 12. We ended
up at 9,000ft when the cloud cleared.
That was when we saw we were flying
in-between two mountain peaks.”
The engines managed to come back
to life and they landed at an airstrip
in North Burma (now Myanmar). He
recalled a quirky wartime detail about
the event: “Some US soldiers emerged
from the jungle and took us back to
their camp where they had an icecream
maker! We ate freshly made ice
cream in the jungle.”
Immediately after the war he lived in
South-East Asia, as part of an RAF team
which flew 2400 tonnes of rice and 180
tonnes of salt to the starving Kachin
people living in the Burmese
mountains.
He said he was blessed
to have been appointed
to the 298 Squadron
Tactical Air Force, whose
main tasks were towing
huge gliders and dropping
rations and SAS operatives
across enemy lines.
But Mr Smith didn’t drop
any bombs – a situation for
which he is now grateful.
“I was no hero,” he said. “I
just had a job to do.”
The cricket-loving, former
tennis player said he has
some other regimented
practices that he swore by. “I do the
New York Times puzzle every day to
keep my mind active, and I love the
outdoors,” he said.
Ms Mundell added that chocolate was
also a regular indulgence, joking that
her father had put away more than his
fair share over the years! – Rod Bennett
*ANZAC Day ceremonies – see page 44
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