• the military career of Australian Air Marshal Sir Alister Murdoch spanned 40 years, including seaplane flying in the 1930s and a tenure as Chief of the Air Staff during the Vietnam War?

Facts on topics related to Alister Murdoch

Frederick Scherger

• Group Captain (later Air Chief Marshal Sir) Frederick Scherger was one of the few senior RAAF officers in Northern Australia to emerge from the inquiry into the bombing of Darwin in February 1942 with his career undamaged?

John McCauley (RAAF officer)

• Air Marshal John McCauley's (pictured) university degree was an unusual qualification for a pilot in the pre-war RAAF, whose officers generally "valued little beyond flying ability"?

Royal Australian Air Force

• Air Marshal Charles Read broke with tradition by refusing to sit for the usual portrait painted of retiring RAAF Chiefs of the Air Staff?
• Air Marshal John McCauley's (pictured) university degree was an unusual qualification for a pilot in the pre-war RAAF, whose officers generally "valued little beyond flying ability"?
• Air Vice Marshal Ellis Wackett, the RAAF's senior engineer from 1935 to 1959, was nicknamed "Punch" for his prominent chin and nose?
• Flying Officer (later Air Commodore) Frank Lukis was one of the original twenty-one officers in the RAAF when it was formed in 1921?
• Group Captain (later Air Chief Marshal Sir) Frederick Scherger was one of the few senior RAAF officers in Northern Australia to emerge from the inquiry into the bombing of Darwin in February 1942 with his career undamaged?
• RAAF Beaufort squadrons fighting in New Guinea under the command of Group Captain Val Hancock were so short of ammunition in 1945 that they used captured Japanese ordnance to augment their bomb loads?
• RAAF fighter pilot Brian Eaton (pictured) was shot down three times in ten days in 1943, but went on to become his squadron's commanding officer and eventually retire as an Air Vice Marshal?
• RAAF pilot Allan Walters (pictured) made use of his aerobatic skills while courting his wife-to-be in 1930, performing stunts above the church where her father was rector?
• World War II RAAF fighter ace John Waddy later became a Minister of the Crown, while British Army paratrooper John Waddy went on to command the SAS?
• Clontarf Aboriginal College in Australia has at various points in its history served as an orphanage, a convent, an RAAF training facility, a boarding school and a day school?

Chief of Air Force (Australia)

• Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett was born in the United States to a Scottish father, educated in England and eventually became the Australian Chief of the Air Staff?
• Air Marshal Charles Read broke with tradition by refusing to sit for the usual portrait painted of retiring RAAF Chiefs of the Air Staff?
• Neville McNamara (pictured) was only the second RAAF officer to be promoted Air Chief Marshal, and the last Chief of the Air Staff to be knighted before Australia abandoned imperial honours?

Morotai Mutiny

• eight of Australia's top fighter pilots attempted to resign their commissions in the final months of World War II, in the so-called Morotai Mutiny?