30 Facts About Henry Wrigley

Air Vice Marshal Henry Neilson Wrigley, CBE, DFC, AFC was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force.

Henry Wrigley was awarded the Air Force Cross for his 1919 cross-country flight.

Henry Wrigley was a founding member of the RAAF in 1921 and held staff posts in the ensuing years.

Henry Wrigley was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire the same year.

Henry Wrigley served as Air Officer Commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters, London, from September 1942 until his retirement from the military in June 1946.

Henry Wrigley died in 1987 at the age of ninety-five.

Henry Wrigley was educated at Richmond Central School and at Melbourne High School, where he joined the cadets.

Henry Wrigley later observed that most wartime aircraft were "impossible to fight in", and that senior officers were "too occupied with coaxing aeroplanes into the air and teaching pilots to bring them down again without breaking their necks" to consider the wider implications of air power.

On 1 January 1920, Henry Wrigley transferred to the Australian Air Corps, a temporary organisation formed by the Army following disbandment of the wartime AFC.

Henry Wrigley was appointed adjutant at Central Flying School the following month.

In 1921, Henry Wrigley joined the newly established Royal Australian Air Force as a flight lieutenant.

Henry Wrigley travelled to England in 1928 to attend RAF Staff College, Andover, becoming one of the first RAAF officers to complete the course.

Henry Wrigley was promoted to wing commander in December 1932.

Henry Wrigley was promoted group captain in July 1936, and that October took over as commanding officer of RAAF Station Laverton, Victoria, from Group Captain McNamara.

Henry Wrigley handed over the station's command to Group Captain Adrian Cole in February 1939.

In May 1939, Henry Wrigley served as the senior expert assessor on the panel of an inquiry into three recent accidents involving Avro Ansons; the full report handed down in October found that training on the type followed the syllabus, but that pilots needed more practical experience in dealing with in-flight incidents, as human error was the likely explanation for at least one crash.

Henry Wrigley was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1941 New Year Honours.

Henry Wrigley believed that recruiting servicewomen was essential to augment the many ground staff required to support the war effort, and considered that although such an organisation should be constitutionally separate from the RAAF, its members should be closely integrated within the current force structure.

Henry Wrigley chose Stevenson on the basis of her management background and because she was not a "socialite".

Meanwhile, Henry Wrigley played a leading part in the development of the Air Training Corps, formed in April 1941 to facilitate basic training for youths aged sixteen to eighteen who hoped to become RAAF aircrew.

The Minister for Air, Arthur Drakeford, was in favour of Williams commanding the RAAF offices in both the US and UK while Henry Wrigley acted for him in London, despite Henry Wrigley having been appointed AOC.

Henry Wrigley became a familiar and popular figure for the thousands of Australian airmen who passed through London during the war, and was known to take off his jacket and tend bar at Codgers, the headquarters' watering hole.

In March 1943, following negotiations that had begun the previous year, Henry Wrigley signed a revision of EATS that finally recognised Australia's "national aspirations" regarding concentration of her airmen in RAAF squadrons as opposed to them being scattered throughout RAF units, reasonable prospects of promotion and rotation for staff, and pay and other conditions of service confirmed as being per RAAF stipulations.

Henry Wrigley found it difficult to secure civilian employment because, "by the time I got back, all the worthwhile jobs round Australia had been snapped up by people, not only air force people but other people on the spot".

Henry Wrigley was made an honorary air vice marshal in July 1956.

Henry Wrigley published Aircraft and Economic Development: The RAAF Contribution through the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1969.

Henry Wrigley wrote a history of the Victorian branch of the United Services Institution in 1980.

An "inveterate note-taker" according to friends, during his career Henry Wrigley compiled extensive documentation concerning the theory and practice of air power, on which he lectured among his colleagues in the RAAF during the 1920s.

Henry Wrigley is thus credited with laying the foundations for the RAAF's modern air power doctrine, which would eventually be codified as the Air Power Manual in 1990.

Henry Wrigley's name is borne by Henry Wrigley Drive, approaching Darwin International Airport.