REMEMBERING HEROES

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The stories behind the names on the signs at the rest stops on the Remembrance Driveway, which goes from Sydney to Canberra.

The highway commemorates persons awarded the Victoria Cross by naming rest stops after him.

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The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces

The VC was introduced on 29 January 1856 by Queen Victoria to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War.

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BILL NEWTON VC

Flight Lieutenant William Ellis Newton VC. (1919 – 1943)

Rest Stop:

Location:

Newton VC Rest Area

Old Federal Highway, Bywong NSW 2621

About:

Newton was honoured for his actions as a bomber pilot in Papua New Guinea during March 1943 when, despite intense anti-aircraft fire, he pressed home a series of attacks on the Salamaua Isthmus, the last of which saw him forced to ditch his aircraft in the sea. Newton was still officially posted as missing when the award was made in October 1943. It later emerged that he had been taken captive by the Japanese, and executed by beheading on 29 March.

Raised in Melbourne, Newton excelled at sport, playing cricket at youth state level. He joined the Citizen Military Forces in 1938 and enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in February 1940. He had earlier attempted to enlist when he turned eighteen in 1937, but his mother refused to give her permission; with Australia now at war, she consented. He had earlier attempted to enlist when he turned eighteen in 1937, but his mother refused to give her permission; with Australia now at war, she consented.

Described as having the dash of "an Errol Flynn or a Keith Miller", Newton served as a flying instructor in Australia before being posted to No. 22 Squadron, which began operating Boston light bombers in New Guinea late in 1942. Having just taken part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, he was on his fifty-second mission when he was shot down and captured. Newton was the only Australian airman to receive a Victoria Cross for action in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, and the sole Australian to be so decorated while flying with an RAAF squadron.

Newton gained a reputation for driving straight at his targets without evasive maneuver, and always leaving them in flames; this earned him the nickname "The Firebug". The Japanese gunners reportedly knew him as "Blue Cap", from his habit of wearing an old blue cricket cap on operations. In spite of the hazards of the air war in New Guinea, he was quoted as saying, "The troops on the ground should get two medals each, before any airman gets one".

Victoria Cross:

Newton was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions on 16–18 March, becoming the only Australian airman to earn the decoration in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, and the only one while flying with an RAAF squadron. 

The citation, which incorrectly implied that he was shot down on 17 March rather than the following day, and as having failed to escape from his sinking aircraft, was promulgated in The London Gazette on 19 October 1943:

Air Ministry, 19th October, 1943.

The KING has been graciously pleased, on the advice of Australian Ministers, to confer the VICTORIA CROSS on the undermentioned officer in recognition of most conspicuous bravery: —

Flight Lieutenant William Ellis NEWTON (Aus. 748), Royal Australian Air Force, No. 22 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron (missing).

Flight Lieutenant Newton served with No. 22 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, in New Guinea from May, 1942, to March, 1943, and completed 52 operational sorties.

Throughout, he displayed great courage and an iron determination to inflict the utmost damage on the enemy. His splendid offensive flying and fighting were attended with brilliant success. Disdaining evasive tactics when under the heaviest fire, he always went straight to his objectives. He carried out many daring machine-gun attacks on enemy positions involving low-flying over long distances in the face of continuous fire at point-blank range.

On three occasions, he dived through intense anti-aircraft fire to release his bombs on important targets on the Salamaua Isthmus. On one of these occasions, his starboard engine failed over the target, but he succeeded in flying back to an airfield 160 miles away. When leading an attack on an objective on 16 March 1943, he dived through intense and accurate shell fire and his aircraft was hit repeatedly. Nevertheless, he held to his course and bombed his target from a low level. The attack resulted in the destruction of many buildings and dumps, including two 40,000-gallon fuel installations. Although his aircraft was crippled, with fuselage and wing sections torn, petrol tanks pierced, main-planes and engines seriously damaged, and one of the main tyres flat, Flight Lieutenant Newton managed to fly it back to base and make a successful landing.

Despite this harassing experience, he returned next day to the same locality. His target, this time a single building, was even more difficult but he again attacked with his usual courage and resolution, flying a steady course through a barrage of fire. He scored a hit on the building but at the same moment his aircraft burst into flames.

Flight Lieutenant Newton maintained control and calmly turned his aircraft away and flew along the shore. He saw it as his duty to keep the aircraft in the air as long as he could so as to take his crew as far away as possible from the enemy's positions. With great skill, he brought his blazing aircraft down on the water. Two members of the crew were able to extricate themselves and were seen swimming to the shore, but the gallant pilot is missing. According to other air crews who witnessed the occurrence, his escape-hatch was not opened and his dinghy was not inflated. Without regard to his own safety, he had done all that man could do to prevent his crew from falling into enemy hands.

Flight Lieutenant Newton's many examples of conspicuous bravery have rarely been equalled and will serve as a shining inspiration to all who follow him.

Death and Being Remembered:

Buried initially in an unmarked bomb crater in Salamaua, Newton's body was recovered and re-interred in Lae War Cemetery after Salamaua's capture by Allied troops in September 1943. His grave marker bears the epitaph For God, my king, my country. In early 1944, the recently constructed No. 4 Airfield in Nadzab was renamed Newton Field in his honour.

For many years, the story of Newton's death was intertwined with that of an Australian commando, Sergeant Len Siffleet, who had also been captured in New Guinea. A photograph showing Siffleet about to be beheaded was discovered by American troops in April 1944 and was thought to have depicted Newton in Salamaua, but there is no known photograph of Newton’s execution.

News of Newton’s brutal execution shocked Australia. It was published in newspapers around the country after it had been translated from the captured diary of a Japanese soldier who had witnessed Newton’s death.

Newton was not specifically named in the diary, but he was identified by circumstantial evidence: the diary entry recorded the beheading of an Australian flight lieutenant who had been shot down by anti-aircraft fire on 18 March 1943 while flying a Douglas aircraft. The Japanese observer described the prisoner as "composed" in the face of his impending execution, and "unshaken to the last". After the decapitation, a seaman slashed open the dead man's stomach, declaring, "Something for the other day. Take that."

The graphic account of his death tormented Newton’s mother, Minnie, who believed the extensive coverage of her son’s exploits against the Japanese lay behind their decision to execute him.

Newton's mother was presented with her son's Victoria Cross by the Governor-General, the Duke of Gloucester, on 30 November 1945. She donated it to the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, where it remains on display with his other medals.

In the 1990s, his friend Keith Miller successfully fought to ensure that the Victoria Racing Club abandoned a plan to rename the William Ellis Newton Steeplechase—run on Anzac Day—after a commercial sponsor. Later in the decade, Miller also publicly questioned Australia Post's exclusion of Newton from a series of stamps featuring notable Australians such as cricketer Sir Donald Bradman.

A plaque dedicated to No. 22 Squadron was unveiled at the Australian War Memorial by the Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Angus Houston, on 16 March 2003, the sixtieth anniversary of Newton's attack on Salamaua.

Gallery:

Portrait of William Newton VC, c 1940

Newton relaxing at Wagga in 1941

Newton beside his aircraft with ammunition belt draped around his neck, c 1942-1943

Studio portrait of the three brothers, Lindsay Newton, a dentist in the Australian Army Medical Corps, Surgeon Lieutenant John Newton, Royal Australian Navy, and Flight Lieutenant William (Bill) Newton, Royal Australian Air Force. The photograph was a spontaneous idea after the three brothers met by chance at the Hotel Australia in Melbourne. It would be the last time they were all together.

A Douglas Boston aircraft of No. 22 Squadron, RAAF, in New Guinea. It is widely accepted that the Boston closest to the camera was flown by Newton.

Newton's grave marker at Lae War Cemetery

Portrait of Newton commissioned by his family from indigenous artist Blak Douglas (b. 1970, Dhungatti people). The portrait shows Newton in the foreground with a ghostly depiction of his stricken Boston bomber in the sky to his left. The portrait hangs in the Australian War Memorial.

Keith Miller, photographed in 1951.

Miller (1919 – 2004) was an Australian Test cricketer and a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II.

Sergeant Siffleet's execution at Aitape, 1943. It was at one time thought that the person depicted was Newton.

The photograph was found on the body of a dead Japanese soldier and shows Sergeant Siffleet wearing a blindfold and with his arms tied, about to be beheaded with a sword by Yasuno Chikao. The execution was ordered by Vice Admiral Kamada, the commander of the Japanese Naval Forces at Aitape. Sgt Siffleet was captured with Private (Pte) Pattiwahl and Pte Reharin, Ambonese members of the Netherlands East Indies Forces, whilst engaged in reconnaissance behind the Japanese lines. Yasuno Chikao died before the end of the war.