ANZAC Special: Lane Cove Historical Society

Next date: Tuesday, 22 April 2025 | 07:00 PM to 08:45 PM

Speaker Denis Smith OAM tells the story of WWII fighter pilot, Nat Gould, Australia’s unsung flying ace.

Remarkably, Nat Gould fought in six theatres of war — Russia, England, Milne Bay New Guinea, Darwin, in Pacific Fleet and the Indian Ocean. He held four commissions: RAAF, RAF, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, Royal Australia Navy Fleet Air Arm.

He is certainly one of Australia's unsung heroes: in one and a half weeks, 75 Squadron RAAF lost 75% of its aircraft at Milne Bay, yet there were no Milne Bay medals. The Spitfires fighting the Japanese in Darwin also saw no medals and there were no medals for the RAAF in Russia. Nat and his fellow fighters endured the incredible, from the freezing cold of the Rusian Arctic Circle to the furnace heat of New Guinea.

Nat flew 38 different fighters including Spitfires and Hurricanes during WWII. At the end of the war he joined the British Pacific Fleet, Fleet Air Arm. Then in 1950, as Commander Nat Gould RAN Fleet Air Arm, he flew off HMAS Sydney in the Korean War.

Our speaker is Denis Smith OAM, a Past President of the LCHS, who has an extensive knowledge of Australian history and researches many aspects including our miltary and early settlement history. Denis will illustrate his talk with a documentary from Russian National TV (English subtitles) called “Arctic Brotherhood”. The film covers Nat’s time flying Hurricanes in Russia and the film pays tribute to both pilot and plane.