Andrew William Barr OBE MC DFC (1915 - 2006)

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Fighter Ace 1.2 Post war 2 Sources

Biography

Andrew 'Nicky' Barr OBE MC DFC & Bar was a member of the Australian Rugby Union team and became a fighter ace in the Royal Australian Air Force during the Second World War; credited with twelve aerial victories, all scored flying the Curtiss P-40 fighter.

Andrew William 'Nicky' Barr was born on 10th December 1915 in Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. He was the older of twin boys of John Barr and Agnes Anderson. ^[1] The family moved to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia when the boys were six years of age. Growing up in Melbourne, Andrew attended Kew Public School and played Australian Rules football. He was also the Victorian Schoolboys' 100 yards athletics champion three years in succession, from 1926 to 1928.

After leaving school, Barr studied construction at Swinburne Technical College (now Swinburne University of Technology), but later took a diploma course in accountancy and made it his profession. He started playing rugby union in 1935 through a friend in the Power House club. Weighing 80 kilograms (180 lb) and just under 180 centimetres (6 ft) tall, Andrew gained selection for Victoria as a hooker the following year. In 1939, he was chosen to play in the United Kingdom with the Australian national team, the Wallabies. The tour was cancelled less than a day after the team arrived in the UK on 2nd September, due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Fighter Ace

Keen to serve as a fighter pilot, Andrew initially tried to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF), but withdrew his application when told that it was unlikely he would fly anytime in the near future, and that he could expect only administrative duties in the interim. Returning to Australia on the RMS Strathaird, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as an air cadet on 4th March 1940. ^[2][3] After undergoing instruction on Tiger Moths at No.3 Elementary Flying Training School, Essendon, and on Hawker Demons and Avro Ansons at No.1 Service Flying Training School, Point Cook, he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 24th September that year. He gained a reputation as something of a rebel during training, and became forever known as 'Nicky', for 'Old Nick', or the Devil.

By November, Nicky had been posted to No.23 (City of Brisbane) Squadron, flying CAC Wirraways on patrol off the Queensland coast. While based in Queensland, he served as honorary aide-de-camp to the Governor, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, and also captained the RAAF rugby union team. He was promoted to Flying Officer on 24th March 1941.

He was posted to North Africa on 28th September 1941, to fly with No.3 Squadron. He converted to P-40 Tomahawk fighters at an RAF operational training unit in Khartoum. Returning to North Africa, Nicky achieved his first aerial victory, over a Messerschmitt Bf 110, on 12th December. He followed this up with a Junkers Ju 88 and a Messerschmitt Bf 109 the next day. The squadron then re-equipped with P-40 Kittyhawks; Nicky was flying the new model when he became an ace on New Year's Day 1942, shooting down two Junkers Ju 87 Stukas. At this time he was also made senior flight commander. On 8th March, he led a flight of six Kittyhawks to intercept a raid on Tobruk by twelve Ju 87s escorted by ten Macchi C 202s and two Bf 109s. The Australians destroyed six Macchis and three Ju 87s without loss; Nicky personally accounting for one of the Macchis. Promoted to Flight Lieutenant on 1st April, Nicky was raised to acting Squadron Leader and appointed to command the unit in May, barely six months after he commenced operations. As a commander he delegated most administrative tasks to his Adjutant but, contrary to normal practice, wrote letters to the next-of-kin of casualties himself. Nicky was shot down three times while serving with No.3 Squadron, the first occasion being 11th January 1942. As one of the German pilots came in low to strafe his downed Kittyhawk, Nicky ran straight at it in an attempt to throw the pilot off his aim, and was injured by fragments of rock sent airborne by the impact of cannon shells. A tribe of friendly Senussi Arabs found him, dressed his wounds, and helped him return to Allied lines. For his exploit, and earlier successes, Nicky was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for 'displaying the greatest of skill as a fighter pilot', gazetted in London in February 1942. ^[4] He was shot down for the second time on 30th May, when he engaged eight Bf 109s and destroyed one before being hit and forced to crash land at high speed in no-man's land. He came down in a minefield during a fierce tank battle, and was forced to remain where he was as troops of both sides slowly converged on him; British forces managed to reach him first and, after treatment for wounds, he again returned to his squadron.

On 26th June 1942, after being attacked by two Bf 109s and bailing out of his burning Kittyhawk, he was captured by Italian soldiers and taken as a prisoner-of-war, first to Tobruk, and then to Italy, where he received hospital treatment for serious wounds. During his incarceration, he was awarded a Bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross for 'destroying further enemy aircraft', gazetted in both London and Canberra in February 1943. ^[5] Nicky tried to escape from his confinement four times. By November 1942 he had recovered sufficiently from the injuries he received in June to break out of the hospital where he was being held in Bergamo, Northern Italy. He made his way to the Swiss border, but was challenged by an Italian customs official, whom he struck with a rock before being recaptured. Court-martialled on a charge of murder, he only avoided a death sentence when the Swiss Red Cross Colonel representing him located the official and proved that he had not died! In August 1943, with Italy on the verge of surrender, prisoners of war were rounded up for transport to Germany. Nicky jumped from a moving train bound for the Brenner Pass and joined a group of Italian partisans in Pontremoli, remaining at large for two months before again being captured. Taken to a transit camp just over the Austrian border, he and fourteen other prisoners escaped by tunnelling under the barbed wire. Eventually, he managed to link up with an Allied special operations unit, which was gathering intelligence behind enemy lines, sabotaging Axis infrastructure, and helping Allied prisoners and Italian refugees escape over the Apennine Mountains. He was recaptured and escaped once more before finally making it through the Alpine crossing himself, leading a group of more than twenty. After reaching friendly lines in March 1944, he was sent to a military hospital in Vasto, weighing only 55 kgs (121 lb) and in poor health, suffering malaria, malnutrition, and blood poisoning. He was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for 'exceptional courage in organising escapes while a POW', gazetted in both London and Canberra in December 1944. ^[6]

Posted to Britain in April 1944, Nicky went ashore at Omaha Beach two days after D-Day as part of an air support control unit. During the campaign in Normandy, he flew rocket-armed Hawker Typhoons on operations against V-1 flying bomb launch sites. After his return to Australia on 11th September, he was promoted to acting Wing Commander and appointed chief instructor at No.2 Operational Training Unit in Mildura, Victoria. He also went to New Guinea and flew some ground-attack missions in the Kittyhawk to gain experience in the South West Pacific theatre.

Following the end of hostilities in August 1945, Nicky was treated for recurring fever and underwent two operations on his limbs in No.6 RAAF Hospital, Heidelberg. He was discharged from the RAAF on 8th October. ^[2] All three gallantry awards were presented by the Governor of Victoria on 18th September 1945 at the Heidelberg RAAF Hospital. ^[7][8][9]

Post war

After leaving the Air Force, Nicky remained in Mildura with his wife, Dorothy 'Dot' Gore. They had met on a blind date in 1938 and been married only a few weeks when Nicky joined the RAAF. ^[10] During the war Dot was told on three occasions that her husband was dead! The couple had two sons, Bob and Brian, born in 1945 and 1947.

He went into business as a company manager and director with civil engineering and pharmaceutical firms. Nicky rejoined the RAAF on 20th March 1951 as a pilot in the active Citizen Air Force (CAF), with the acting rank of Wing Commander. On 15th April 1953, he transferred to the CAF reserve.

In 1961, he became General Manager of Meggitt Ltd, an oilseed-crushing firm; eventually rising to become Executive Chairman. His work in the industry led to his appointment in the 1983 New Year Honours as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). ^[11]

Aged ninety years and having been widowed for several months, he passed away on 12th June 2006 on Queensland's Gold Coast. ^[3] Four F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters from No.3 Squadron overflew his funeral service on the Gold Coast. ^[12] He was further honoured at a rugby union test match between Australia and England in Melbourne on 17th June, the day after his funeral. ^[13]

On 14th September 2006, No.3 Squadron dedicated a stone memorial in Nicky's honour; the unveiling attended by both of his sons. ^[14]

Sources

1. ↑ New Zealand Birth Index #1916/9741
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Department of Veterans' Affairs nominal roll: O35392 (250774) Squadron Leader Andrew William 'Nicky' Barr; accessed 12 Oct 2023
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Australian War Memorial: O35392 (250774), 774 Wing Commander Andrew William 'Nicky' Barr; accessed 12 Oct 2023
4. ↑ Australian War Memorial honours and awards: DFC; accessed 12 Oct 2023
5. ↑ Australian War Memorial honours and awards: Bar to the DFC; accessed 12 Oct 2023
6. ↑ Australian War Memorial honours and awards: MC; accessed 12 Oct 2023
7. ↑ Australian War Memorial honours and awards (recommendation): DFC; accessed 12 Oct 2023
8. ↑ Australian War Memorial honours and awards (recommendation): Bar to his DFC; accessed 12 Oct 2023
9. ↑ Australian War Memorial honours and awards (recommendation): MC; accessed 12 Oct 2023
10. ↑ Victoria Marriage Index #11603/1941
11. ↑ London Gazette; accessed 12 Oct 2023
12. ↑ "Goodbye to Aussie Great". Air Force News, 29 Jun 2006; accessed 12 Oct 2023
13. ↑ "Andrew "Nicky" Barr and the 1939 Wallabies tour". The Age, 17 Jun 2006; accessed 12 Oct 2023
14. ↑ Air Force: Memorial honours a squadron hero; accessed 12 Oct 2023

See also:

• Wikipedia: Nicky Barr; accessed 12 Oct 2023.
• Andrew William aka Nicky Barr (The Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, https://www.powmemorialballarat.com.au/ : accessed 7 Mar 2024)