ANZAC COVERAGE
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At just 19 years old, Keith Haydon enlisted for the RAAF in Narromine during World War II.
Now, with Anzac Day just passed, the 92-year-old reflects on his time in the Air Force.
"I was in the Air Force I wanted to be a pilot, but you had to have parent's consent.
"Dad wanted me to be a pilot, he joined the Royal Air Corps during the First World War, but he didn't train because the war was finished. (Dad) wanted me to go in as a pilot but mum wouldn't let me, but she let me join the ground staff. So I joined and trained as an air frame fitter, which thinking back on it was good because I enjoyed it more than anything else," Mr Haydon mused.
"While I was in Narromine, I lost the sight in my eye. That was 1943 and I thought I'd be discharged. But I went before a medical board with three doctors and I thought for sure I would be. Because they won't accept you with one (eye), when the results came back, the sergeant came and showed it to me, he said the results were in and I was fit for tropical work. Within three months I was in New Guinea," he said.
"I walked to Hiroshama, it was some months after the (atomic) bomb, but it was still desolate. Just a few people wandering around, no business, no nothing,"
- Keith Hayden
At the conclusion of the war in 1945, Mr Haydon was not able to join the rest of the World War II Anzacs on their way home, he was required to stay and continue working for the RAAF overseas.
"The war ended in '46 and they kept us there. We were doing courier work from Borneo. We did Singapore and brought back a lot of POWs (prisoners of war).
"If they were well enough they were sent back to Australia if not, they were put into a hospital in Labuan. We used to fly out and get people and bring the sick people back."
After a month of couriering Anzacs, Mr Haydon wanted to return to Narromine.
"I'd had it, I'd been up there 12 months. They had plenty of chaps with the same experience as me. I went and saw my skipper and I said someone will take my place, but he shook his head and said, 'I've got nothing against the other chap's ability, but he has no experience where you have'.
"You've serviced the longest trip, he's had workshop back-up all his life, but you haven't, you've serviced without them,' he said. But looking back on it all now, I'm not sorry," he said.
Mr Haydon and his team spent 10 days in Japan after the war, he said his squadron explored together.
"I walked to Hiroshama, it was some months after the (atomic) bomb, but it was still desolate. Just a few people wandering around, no business, no nothing," he said.
"We spent eight hours walking around, it was just as bad as what the papers said. They only thing they told us was don't eat anything, any fruit or anything like that.
"It was really amazing the damage it did. The railway came in on the edges of it. Got to the station, only the the platform was there. We just went to have a look, looking back on it, it would have been thousands of dollars for the same trip today," he said.
Twelve months after the war, Mr Haydon returned to Darwin to escort some fighter jets.
"Customs were starting to get onto all the aircraft coming in, our aircraft was full of stuff we should have had. We had to escort the two mustangs, beaufighters and mosquitoes back in again. When we got signal saying they were in Darwin and they didn't need any more Air Sea Rescue we went off, no customs. I don't know how many American cigarettes they had, and rifles and all those sorts of things we shouldn't have had, I didn't have any but all those others did!"
Mr Haydon said he enlisted in 1941, the four-and- a-half years he was serving in the army was the only time he lived away from Narromine. Mr Haydon returned to farm life and Narromine and still lives here till this very day.