Book Review: Clive Caldwell, Air Ace

[Don Clark]

Clive Caldwell, Air Ace
by Kristen Alexander, Allen & Unwin Australia <http://www.allenandunwin.com>, ISBN 1-74114-705-0, softback, 288 pages, 53 b&w photos (24 pages), rrp $A35.00.

A set of letters and photos acquired at auction proved so gripping that Kristen Alexander, a Canberra bookseller, felt impelled to research and write her first book about their subject: Group Captain Clive Robertson Caldwell DSO, DFC and Bar, Polish Cross of Valour. Caldwell became Australia's top scoring fighter pilot of World War II, credited with 27 1/2 victories in the Middle East and South West Pacific theatres.

Alexander provides a telling account of Caldwell's RAF and RAAF career, drawing on his own letters, photographs, writings, speeches and interviews (to which she has had unrivalled access), and upon official records of his service. His successes with 250 Squadron RAF (Tomahawk IIB) and 112 Squadron RAF (Kittyhawk IA) in the Western Desert from April 1941 to April 1942 are vividly retold, as are those in 1943 with 1 Fighter Wing RAAF (Spitfire Vc and VIII) in northern Australia.

The author also discusses Caldwell's American trips and his testing of - and testy report on - the CAC Boomerang, and unravels the complexities of the Spitfire losses on "the day the planes all fell into the sea" at Darwin (Sunday 2 May 1943). She then presents a full and dispassionate account of the April 1945 Morotai affair and its aftermath (which saw Caldwell first stick his neck out against authority, only to find himself later court-martialled and reduced in rank for liquor trading). Caldwell ultimately left the RAAF with bitterness in 1946. In civil life, his pride in the achievements and comradeship of his war service was balanced with a careful detachment, a distaste for his unwanted sobriquet, and a determination to leave his personal story untold.

Alexander's account pulls no punches and, packed with detail, makes good reading on an engaging if sometimes difficult subject. Lavishly illustrated with 24 pages of photographs from Caldwell's athletic youth, war service and retirement, the book is rounded out with a full battery of endmatter: Appendices that include (among others) a complete account of his victory claims, his Request for Termination of Commission, and his Court Martial Charge Sheet; an illuminating set of Notes on sources that reflect the depth of research that underpins this quality work; a rich Bibliography; and finally a serviceable Index.

Kristen Alexander is Federal Secretary of the Military Historical Society of Australia and an Associate Member of the Spitfire Association. Her book may well be the definitive Caldwell biography: it is certainly one which deserves to do well.

Publication date: Fri 7 July 2006.
Reviewer: Don Clark is a Canberra-based military history researcher.

This post has been edited by Don Clark on Jul 7 2006, 08:03 AM

[Brendan Cowan]

Thanks for that Don,

I've added this book to the "must get" list.

Would you care to make any comparisons between this book and Jeffrey Watson's?

Cheers

BC

[Don Clark]

Brendan,

I've been thinking about how best to answer this, without trying to do a complete review of Watson's book, or a point by point comparison of the two. I'll try to be brief, and offer both personal opinion and a few other firm points.

Watson has written in a somewhat light tone. That might not matter, except to the individual taste of the reader, if it was only a matter of style. So for example, the frequent repetition of just the subject's Christian name (Clive this, Clive that etc) may well grate for some, but so what (though it did for me, eg).

However, there are several passages where stuff is, well, made up - as if the author had a tape-recording of the subject's thoughts at the time. See eg Intro page xii, xiii. And p44: the state of Schmidt's bladder cannot possibly be known. This is pointless straining, either for clinical detail, or for dramatic effect.

Does it matter? I think so. These points make for uneasiness about the extent to which other material is shown "as recorded" or whether it, too, has been edited for effect. As Watson hasn't given fully detailed sources for his quotation passages, we simply can't know what he has condensed, or even what came from eg letters of the time or from later musings.

While there are a few unfortunate typos (54 Squadron becomes briefly 45 Squadron at one point), these might bedevil any author. However, Caldwell's DSO becomes - uniquely - a DSC in the Appendix citation, p266. This one is really a rather poor effort.

Then there are several other howlers that really should have been cleared up in original research - or at least in editing/vetting. The ones that stood out quickly:

Caldwell's mother died when he was "quite young" according to Watson (p17): in fact she died in 1931 when Caldwell was 21.

Rommel gets a very early (Jun 41) bump up to Field Marshal (p37) before dropping back again to General (p57 Nov 41). In fact he reached FM rank only c. Jun 1942.

According to Watson, p94, "it was considered too dangerous to fly to England from the Mediterranean" so Caldwell returned via West Africa, Caribbean, US. This is simply utterly wrong. The practice of air-ferrying aircraft and aircrew direct from (and to) the UK to (and from) the ME and beyond continued throughout the war. The cause of Caldwell's round-about route was simply to do PR work in America.

I'm also doubtful about his remark that there were no Air Sea Rescue vessels in the Med (p51): perhaps not under that title, and perhaps not the floating buoy stations, but apart from the Sunderlands of 230 Squadron, there was eg the RAF High Speed Launch Unit, present in 1940-41 at least (ie HSL 110) - though I've not made time to check into the Unit's longer history, part of their task was to pick up ditched aircrew.

All in all, the Watson book shows signs of rather too carefree striving for effect and too-hasty preparation. On what we can see here, a more considered comparison with Clive Caldwell Air Ace looks likely to find still more inaccuracies - not least because all Alexander's references are complete, and can be checked against source.

It's difficult to write remarks that turn out to be as picky as this - but then, Caldwell spent 40 odd years of his life fending off biographers. He -and his widow- deserve the best we can put together for him, not an "easy read" that looks increasingly weak in detail and hence likely to be weak in interpretation.

Overall, then, I prefer the Alexander approach, though not so dramatic in style. Indeed Caldwell's story is itself quite dramatic enough without adding flourishes. So with its satisfying weight of detail, meticulous coverage, and marvellous photo set, Clive Caldwell Air Ace gives - in my opinion - a more telling portrait of a man who would never have told his own story.

This post has been edited by Don Clark on Jul 7 2006, 08:08 PM

[Brendan Cowan]

Hi Don,

Thanks for this very comprenhensive answer to a very small question on my part!

This does confirm my what I thought the key differences might be:

- One a more commercial (but well meant) book set to appeal to to a more general/casual market.

- The other a more studied approach.

Both valid for there markets but with the attendant flaws that go with that.

As you rightly point out, constructing a fair representation of Caldwell is not that easy given his own preference to avoid biographers and the unique character of the man himself.

Thanks for taking the time and thought to put this together Don.

Cheers

BC