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Bob Cowper
| Squadron Leader Bob Cowper DFC* (deceased) Joining 153 Sqn flying Defiants, changing to Beaufighters. In 1943 he flew Beaufighters in Malta. With 89 Sqn he crashed in Tunisia, having to walk home 65 miles through the Sahara Desert. Went from 89 Sqn to 108 Sqn and then as an instructor teaching night flying. Joined 456 Sqn RAAF before D-Day, finishing the war on Intruder missions and 6 air victories. He became acting CO of 456 Sqn. Bob Cowper first trained in de Havilland Tiger Moths and continued training in Yorkton, Canada where he gained his wings flying a Harvard trainer before sailing to the UK. In August 1941, he trained as a night-fighter pilot at RAF East Fortune near Edinburgh before being posted to Ballyhalbert, County Down, Northern Ireland. Initially flying Boulton Defiant night-fighters but later Bristol Beaufighters, he flew night sorties to protect not only Ireland but the Atlantic convoys carrying troops and supplies to Europe from North America. Bob was posted in December 1943 to Malta with RAAF 456 Squadron. Having picked up a brand new Beaufighter from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, he and his Scottish navigator Watson were on a secret mission between Gibraltar and Malta in January 1943 when they got lost in darkness and heavy cloud, with an inoperable radio and virtually out of fuel, and crash-landed in pitch darkness and without wheels in the Sahara desert. Guessing correctly that they were behind enemy lines, they torched the Beaufighter as per their training because it contained state-of-the-art radar technology they did not want to fall into enemy hands. They had one box of matches and they used every one because there was so little fuel left in the tank to ignite. 'We decided to start walking to Tripoli but noticed we were being trailed by sword-wielding Arabs on horseback. After firing my service pistol, I yelled that I was Australian and they were not hostile at all.' The Arabs sheltered them in tents for five days before a Hussar corporal from the British 'Desert Rats' picked them up. Within weeks, Cowper and Watson were back in the air, flying out of Malta and bombing and strafing enemy planes over Sicily. Cowper also played a major air role during Operation Husky, the allied invasion of Sicily on July 9th-10th, 1943. On July 11, since Watson was down with dysentery, Cowper had the RAF navigator Farquharson, from Bendochy, Perthshire, behind him when they had a dogfight with a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju88 fighter-bomber they had seen attacking allied ships. Cowper blew it to pieces in a fireball but some of those pieces hit his own Beaufighter and sent it spiralling into the Mediterranean. Cowper called on Farquharson to get out of the bottom hatch before him but apparently he never did. He was missing in action, presumed dead. Cowper parachuted into the ocean, where his automatic mini-dinghy inflated and he drifted all night, exhausted and expecting to die. In the morning, he spotted a ship 'lit up like a Christmas tree' which he assumed was a hospital ship since no others would have their lights on in a combat zone. It was the hospital ship HMHS Aba. Its captain saw his flare and he scrambled ashore with a broken nose and shrapnel in his legs, demanding to be returned to Malta to get back in the battle. He did, and was flying again within a week, wearing a reinforced oxygen mask over his broken nose and shooting down another Ju88 off Sicily, this time with Watson back behind him. The two buddies went on to fly against the Germans in support of the allied thrust towards Berlin. Flying a Mosquito, he shot down four German planes over the beaches of Normandy while his comrades in RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) 456 squadron - Australia's only night-fighter unit - accounted for a total of 35 enemy aircraft. In the weeks after D-Day, Cowper and his squadron also shot down 24 German V-1 flying bombs, probably saving countless lives in and around London. Sadly Bob passed away on 19th June 2016. |
Items Signed by Squadron Leader Bob Cowper DFC* (deceased) |
  | Rangers on the Rampage by Robert Taylor. (APB) SOLD OUT | Flying the high speed low level Day Ranger missions in the Mosquito was one of the most exhilarating forms of aerial combat experienced by aircrews in WWII. Given a free hand at squadron level to select targets of opportunity deep inside enemy held...... | NOT AVAILABLE |
| | Rangers on the Rampage by Robert Taylor. (B) SOLD OUT | Flying the high speed low level Day Ranger missions in the Mosquito was one of the most exhilarating forms of aerial combat experienced by aircrews in WWII. Given a free hand at squadron level to select targets of opportunity deep inside enemy held ...... | NOT AVAILABLE |
Packs with at least one item featuring the signature of Squadron Leader Bob Cowper DFC* (deceased) |
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