Wilfred Arthur achieved victories in all three types against German and Italian opponents, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down four aircraft in a single sortie in November 1941.
16 Facts About Wilfred Arthur
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2.
The next month Wilfred Arthur married a young woman he met in Alexandria, and organised for her to travel with him on his troopship when he was posted back to Australia in January 1942.
3.
Wilfred Stanley Arthur was the son of stock inspector Stanley Oswald Darley Arthur from Inverell, New South Wales, and his English-born wife Helena Elizabeth Chaffers-Welsh.
4.
Aged nineteen and still at the Scots College, Wilfred Arthur applied to join the Royal Australian Air Force.
5.
Wilfred Arthur achieved his first aerial victory by shooting down a Fiat CR.
6.
Wilfred Arthur was in a patrol of five Gladiators that encountered seventeen of the Italian fighters, three of which the Australians claimed destroyed without loss to themselves.
7.
Wilfred Arthur destroyed the last of the four after his plane had been damaged and he was on his way back to base; he crash-landed within the Tobruk perimeter and borrowed a Hurricane to return to his squadron.
8.
The sudden romance came as a shock to Wilfred Arthur's parents; he related that "the first letter I got was a fair imitation of panic I think".
9.
Wilfred Arthur managed to arrange for his new bride to travel with him on the troopship.
10.
Wilfred Arthur developed a reputation for diligence, courtesy, and concern for the welfare of his men.
11.
The Spitfire pilot was killed, and Wilfred Arthur received serious burns.
12.
Wilfred Arthur was repatriated aboard a Bristol Beaufighter to Sydney, where he underwent plastic surgery.
13.
Wilfred Arthur later said that his object for the "mutiny" was to "make as big a fuss as I possibly could with the object of getting the position corrected".
14.
Wilfred Arthur was reported as saying that he was subjected to long hours of political discourse by his captors, but no physical harm or threats of harm.
15.
Wilfred Arthur continued to work in Vietnam after this incident, and by 1966 was running a business supplying duck feathers to the American military for use in life jackets.
16.
In 2011, the Scots College at Warwick opened the Wilf Wilfred Arthur Learning Enrichment Centre, which featured a scale model of "Polly".