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It was Alan Powell’s opinion, in his study of those dark days, that Scherger ‘as so often in his assessments of
human affairs, came closest to the truth’.
By July 1942, Scherger was Director of Defence at Allied Headquarters in Melbourne. He returned to operational
positions in 1943 and commanded various units in New Guinea and Borneo (Kalimantan). He remained in the
RAAF at war’s end and in March 1965 was appointed Air Chief Marshal, the first four star airman in the Australian
forces. He retired from the RAAF in May 1966 and for the next ten years was a director of a number of major
Australian companies. He was, for example, Chairman of the Australian National Airlines Commission (TAA) and
from 1968–1974 Chairman of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation.
The author was privileged to show him around on a return visit he made to Darwin not long before his death.
He died in Melbourne on 16 January 1984 having long been hospitalised as the result of a stroke. Although many
other men had their careers foreshortened by the events of the Darwin bombings Scherger was, as Sir John Gorton
noted, ‘A politician in uniform’. He received a number of honours in his lifetime including the Air Force Cross
(AFC), Distinguished Service Order (DSO), Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and Companion
of the Order of the Bath (CB). He became a Knight of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) on 12 June 1958.
D Gillison, RAAF 1939–42, 1967; D Lockwood, Australia’s Pearl Harbour, 1966; A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988; RAAF personnel
records; H Rayner, ‘Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Scherger’; D Horner, The Commanders, 1984; Who’s Who in Australia, 1983.
L J HAYDON, Vol 3.SCHMIDT, RUDOLPH (DOLPH) (1895–1962), pastoralist, soldier and mining entrepreneur was born on
18 March 1895, the son of Johann Carl Heinrich Schmidt, a South Australian born pastoralist of Goolburra
Station in western Queensland, and his wife Theodora Acolotha Elizabeth, nee Krumel. Educated at Toowoomba
Grammar School, Schmidt worked at Goolburra before moving to another of his father’s properties, Alroy Downs
in the Barkly region of the Northern Territory. He served in the Australian Light Horse during the First World War.
Promoted to Lieutenant, he fought in the Middle East.
Following the war, Schmidt returned to Alroy Downs, where he was Manager until 1935. He became widely
known as a practical and successful cattleman. In 1933, the Pastoral Investigation Committee described Alroy
Downs as ‘a very well managed property not excelled by any other property in the Northern Territory.’ He also
acquired an interest in nearby Rockhampton Downs in 1923, which he retained with other relatives until 1954.
During the early 1930s, he played a significant role in the Tennant Creek gold rush. A company he formed,
Central Gold Mining, operated one of the first batteries on the field and he took up several mining leases there.
He was also involved in the early search for water, sinking several bores, and donated land that the Australian
Inland Mission used for its Tennant Creek welfare hut.
Schmidt departed from the Northern Territory in 1935 when he was appointed Assistant to the General
Superintendent of the Australian Agricultural Company, being based in New South Wales. He left the company
in 1938 when he acquired Twin Hills, a station in central Queensland, but rejoined it in 1941 as its General
Superintendent. He retained this position, the equivalent of the company’s chief executive, until his death.
Instrumental in the company becoming more involved in north Australia, he was responsible for it acquiring
properties in the north of Western Australia and the Northern Territory’s Victoria River District which had
previously belonged to Connor, Doherty and Durack. It was while on a tour of inspection of these that he died at
Argyle Downs, Western Australia, on 10 July 1962.
Schmidt was married in 1922 to Lilian Clara Wendt (1894–1967) of Brisbane. They had two children, one
of whom, Trevor, succeeded his father as General Superintendent of the Australian Agricultural Company.
The marriage ended in divorce and Schmidt married again in 1938 to Doreen Georgina Dunn (1904–1982),
with issue of three children. Although from a Lutheran background, he became an Anglican. He was tall and very
strong.
A cousin and the Schmidt family historian, Peter Schmidt, wrote that he ‘achieved great recognition from his
peers for his lifetime of work in the grazing industries. His ample ability to manage men and properties, as a judge
of good country and a good camp drafting horse, are but a few of the areas of expertise for which he is held in high
esteem.’
D Carment, Australia’s Depression Gold Rush, 1991; P Schmidt, The Schmidt Family of ‘Goolburra’, 1990; R Liddle, ‘Historical Survey
of European Settlement on the Western Barkly Tableland’, Report to the National Trust of Australia (Northern Territory), 1991; family
information.
DAVID CARMENT and TREVOR SCHMIDT, Vol 2.SCHMITZ, MARIA THERESA (THEA) (1927–1990), librarian, was born in Cologne, Germany, on
28 June 1927. She was the younger of two children of Franz Joseph Karl and Paula Louisa Schmitz. Her father,
a lawyer, died while Thea was still in school and her elder brother Paul did not leave Germany.
Her teenage years coincided with the Second World War, and she and her family survived the saturation bombing
of Cologne by the Allies. Occasionally she related episodes of her experiences at this time, such as stealing coal
from the railway to heat the family home during winter.
She concluded a successful school and university career by obtaining a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) from
the University of Cologne in 1953. In 1956, she immigrated to Australia, her first job in this country being, as she
described it, ‘cook-in-the-bush’ in outback Queensland.
She successfully undertook study (by correspondence) for the Library Association of Australia’s Registration
examination (the only library qualifications available in the 1950s and 1960s), and held a number of library