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in 1934 but, with the outbreak of the Second World War, returned to the active list for the duration of war. From
November 1940 to 23 September 1941 he commanded No 22 Squadron, then the RAAF station, Canberra, with
the rank of Squadron Leader. On 1 October 1941 he was promoted to Wing Commander and four months later,
on 30 January 1942, received command of station headquarters at the Darwin RAAF base. Nineteen days later
came the first, devastating, Japanese air raids on Darwin. The second raid hit the RAAF base. Six men died, nine
aircraft were lost on the ground and five P40 fighters as they tried to take off, the station’s two hangars and main
store were burnt out and other buildings severely damaged. The raid was over in twenty minutes. Griffith then
gave the order for base staff to assemble ‘half a mile down the Batchelor road and half a mile into the bush’ to be
fed. In the words of investigator Mr Justice Lowe: ‘What happened as a result was that the order was completely
distorted and by repetition ultimately reached the men in various forms. Some men stated that they were ordered
to go 3 miles, others 7 miles and others 11 miles. Many of the men simply took to the bush’.
Four days later 278 men were still missing. Griffith has received a considerable share of the blame for this
debacle—unfairly, since, with the imminent prospect of more air raids, the order he gave was sensible. The result
stemmed from the RAAF staff’s poor state of training—and this was due mainly to rapid wartime expansion.
With less than three weeks in the command, Griffith could do little to remedy the situation; and he was badly
hampered by the labyrinthine RAAF command structure. At the top was the Darwin Defence Committee (DDC).
Then came Northwest Area Command, Area Combined Headquarters, a partly dormant Combined Defence
Headquarters—and, lastly, Griffith’s RAAF station command. All except the DDC were located on the RAAF
base, a situation that caused Griffith to complain bitterly that he had no authority in his own command. A second
charge against Griffith has more point. Some fifteen to twenty minutes before the first raid, he received a coast
watcher’s warning of an ‘unusually large’ air fleet approaching Darwin—and took no action. Neither did anyone
else; but Griffith took much of the apparent official displeasure, being sent first to command the dispersal area
at Daly Waters and then in April 1942 to preside over the training base at Bairnsdale, Victoria. He never held
another active service command, serving in staff and depot posts in southern Australia for the duration of the
war; but he was awarded the Air Force Cross (AFC) in 1942 and was promoted to Group Captain in December- On 2 October 1945 he transferred to the reserve, a posting terminated in November 1948 for health reasons.
In retirement he practised as a patent and trademark attorney and in 1951 became motoring correspondent for the
Sydney Morning Herald, a post he held until his death from cancer on 13 December 1976. His wife Wynnifred
Morris, whom he married in 1937, survived Griffith.
Griffith published a book, Philosophy of a Fine Car, on the history of Daimler Benz, in 1974.
D Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–42, 1962; D Lockwood, Australia’s Pearl Harbour, 1966, A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988;
Lowe Commission, Report and Minutes of Evidence, 1942; Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 1976; ADB records, Canberra; Air Office,
Officers’ Records, Canberra; AWM card index, personnel of 1939–45 war.
J HAYDON, Vol 1.
GRIFFITHS, HENRY (HARRY or GRIFF) (1895–1980), labourer, surgical orderly and Methodist missionary
and Minister, was born in Pelaw, County Durham, United Kingdom, on 24 May 1895, the eldest son of a miner’s
family. As a child he knew love and kindness although money and material comforts were always scarce. His greatest
influence was his parents whose Christian faith was expressed with sincerity, warmth and a concern for others.
When he was 14, his father, Thomas Griffiths was injured at work and left permanently crippled. Harry left school
and began working to support the family. His little leisure time was spent in the then new Scouting movement
where he learnt elementary lessons of observation, first aid, improvisation and scout craft—all of which were to
be invaluable to him later in life.
At age 19, he enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps and served as a surgical orderly in France during the
First World War. It was in the mud of Flanders that Harry Griffiths was introduced to Australians and Australian
humour. The experience he gained there also proved invaluable for his future work in Central Australia.
He was invalided home in August 1918 and on 30 July 1921 he married Dorothy Knight in the Anglican Church
at Hewarth. Dorothy was born at Bellshill, Scotland on 28 April 1897.
On doctor’s advice Harry decided to migrate to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in March 1925. He found
work on a dairy farm at Glen Forbes in Gippsland. He was described as ‘short of stature, spare of figure, probably
not more than nine stone (60 kilograms); he had the energy and determination of a man of more than double his
size’.
The Methodist Home Mission Office in Melbourne heard that he was a popular lay preacher and offered
him an appointment as a Home Missionary. Dorothy was able to join him in Australia and they set up home at
Strathbogie. After a probationer appointment to Mooralla in 1930, Harry Griffiths began work with the Methodist
inland Mission at Katherine in 1931. Throughout the Inland he was known simply as ‘Griff’. It was an honourable
name that echoed the warm-hearted affection that people felt towards him. From their base at Katherine, Griff and
Dorothy visited and ministered to people living in an area that covered more than a million square kilometres
(400 000 square miles). It took four years for every settlement within that area to be visited but the Griffiths loved
the people of the bush and identified with their life. While patrol padres of other denominations spent the winter
months in the inland and the summer months ‘down south’ the Griffiths remained in the Territory the whole year.
When Griff began patrol work there was one garage in Alice Springs and another in Darwin, a thousand miles
(1 600 kilometres) away. Fellow Protestant ministers and doctors were equally scarce. There were no telephones,
and no wireless. If he broke down on patrol the nearest help might be 200 miles (320 kilometres) away. It was