G'day Dark, I'm a military historian and a former member of the Royal Australian Air Force; during the 1970s. There is much talk of the so-called 'Moratai Mutiny'. Firstly, it was not a mutiny. It was a group of senior RAAF Officers, some of whom commanded Fighter Wings, who resigned their Commissions, as the USAAF elements left them behind; moving away from New Guinea and began their 'island hopping' under the command of USAAF General Kenny; ultimately commanded by Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur was fully aware of Clive Caldwell's prowess as a fighting commander; sending Clive a personal letter of congratulations after a string of successful attacks on the Japanese. He was probably unaware of Clive's mounting number of air-to-air victories in the European theatre. Clive Caldwell was not only Australia's top fighter Ace he was the commanding officer of No 80 Fighter Wing, a large unit that, as the Japanese threatened Australia, transitioned from Tomahawks to Spitfires. It took much badgering of Winston Churchill by the Australian Government and the RAAF to secure the Spitfires. In all honesty, Clive said he preferred the Tomahawk. Clive must have felt a little confined in a Spitfire cockpit, he was 190 centimetres tall. The focus of the 1st Tactical Air Force, under General Kenny, left Australian Air Force squadrons in place as the USAAF moved ever closer to the Philippines and then Japan. The RAAF COs felt that after several pilots had been shot down; risking their pilots' lives on 'mopping-up' sorties was not an activity that would in any way hasten the defeat of the Japanese. By doing this General MacArthur had broken his word; having promised publicly, privately to the Prime Minister and War Cabinet, and in writing, that he would take Australian forces with him in his tactical advance upon the Japanese in the Philippines. Several senior RAAF officers formally resigned their commissions and appointments. This earned the Squadrons concerned a personal visit from General Kenny who, effectively, 'sacked' three of the resigned officers; removing them from active service. The Australian Government, rightly, strenuously disagreed with Kenny's actions over the Australian COs and set up its own, independent judicial enquiry into the reason for the resignations. Mr (later Justice) Barry K.C., and his panel, heard from, voluntary, witnesses and reviewed documents. All the RAAF officers who resigned, including those that had be 'sacked' by General Kenny were fully cleared of any wrong doing and all were reinstated without any loss of rank or privileges, Group Captain Clive Caldwell included. It was formally recorded that the resignations had occurred for the highest reasons of loyalty and duty. Clive himself would have agreed he was not a man of great tact. He was a strongly driven, highly active combat leader who rose from a lowly Pilot Officer, in 1940, to the wartime appointment of Group Captain* just four years later. He was fiercely loyal to his subordinate pilots yet he 'ran a tight ship', always insisting on frequent gunnery practice. He once said, "... any man who couldn't shoot straight should stay on the ground because in the air they are useless as fighter pilots." Early in the war he saw his best mate, shot and killed by a Luftwaffe Ace, while the Aussie was in his parachute after his Tomahawk caught fire. Clive led from the front; every opportunity he got he practiced shooting at his or his wingman's shadows on the ground. Some say he got the nickname 'killer', which he despised, because of his habit of expending any rounds he had left over after a sortie. He would shoot at any enemy movement from armour to cargo and troop trucks. He could take punishment too. On several occasions he sustained multiple injuries, grazes and many near misses from enemy bullets in the air. After VE-Day, over 17,000 RAAF personnel would be returning to Australia and the Government ordered the end of all aircrew training and began 'demobbing' RAAF members beginning with those who had served the longest. With an official 'score' of 28.5 'kills', Wing Commander Clive Caldwell left the RAAF with the confirmed rank of Group Captain upon release, as was the custom. The rumours of Clive being discharged as a Flight Lieutenant or Squadron Leader were just that; rumours. Clive began a company at war's end and successfully managed it until only a handful of years before his death of prostate cancer in 1994. His birthdate is still misquoted to this day, in some publications, due to his 'white lie' which ensured he was accepted as a trainee pilot in 1940. As a Group Captain*, Clive was entitled to a large military funeral as a final tribute from his country. He opted for a private service and a cremation attended only by family members. Bill H. * = Group Captain was equal to the rank of a 'full bird' Colonel in USAAF during WW2. P.S. Dark, your title for this video is a little too ‘theatrical’. 😉

"He took down a Messerschitt BF 109 twin engined fighter"? The BF 109 is a single engined fighter, the BF 110 was a twin engined fighter...

As soon as you said Australian i knew this was going to be some Heroically mad shit

he said he preferred the P-40 over the spitfire and liked the P-47 more than the P -51 in his book ....his shadow shooting was adopted by the RAF and the USAAF returning to base after uneventful missions to improve marksmanship

To be such a badass, the enemy gives you a cool nickname like "Tiger"? Man... that's awesome

At 11:47 you can see Clive beside one of his planes. Look at his aircraft markings: CR🎯C. You can't get more Aussie than that!!! The original Crocodile Hunter!! Good on you mate, ya Legend!

All that....and he survived the war!

A few inaccuracies with this video, including with one of the pilots mentioned. The Heinz Schmidt shown in the photograph had 173 victories and was in JG 52 and went MIA in September 1943, 2 years later. The Heinz Schmidt from JG 27 that Caldwell is credited with shooting down in June 1941 had 6 victories.

Enjoyed your video on Clive Cadwell. Truly a masterful Fighter Piopt. One who flew with great skill and courage. 💪👃✨

Any fighter aces from WW2 there tally’s will never be beaten , all are heroes to their countries.

One bad ass Aussie!

FYI - there are no 'th's, 'nd's or 'st's after squadon names in the RAF. They are usualy pronounced by calling out each number individually, thus 112 Squadron is NOT "One hundred twelfth Squadron" but rather "One One Two Squadron".

The Desert warfare whether on land, sea or air seemed that the best performers were those who walked to the beat of their own drummer. I’ve seen numerous stories of airmen n SAS members in north Africa who were lone wolves, often reprimanded yet were the very best performers.

You really got some great gun-camera footage in this video!

What a character. The best of the best.

I looked at three (3) different sources of fighter pilot info and they all said that Hinz Smit fought in the Battle of Britain and was transferred to the Russian Front. Where he fought the rest of the war until he died. Smit never fought in Africa! I don't know who Caldwallop shot down that day in Africa. But I do know it was Not Hinz Smit. You say he shot down a BF 109 Twin Engine fighter??? How Odd! Read your script before you tape your narration, Dude.

U can build more planes but not more airmen.

Smart pilot ditching tracers … I’m a ground pounder and tracers can be the wrong way to go depending on your mission

Pulled up the wikipedia on this and the information is nearly identical

Good show boss. Thank you.

Very good for an Aussie. Yes I am aware of their excellent drive and ability to adapt. I'm a historian. I had never heard of Australia's ace. Salut. Well done. Flying a warhawk the plane was good for it's era. One big draw back was it's wing mounted guns that a pilot had to converge as the paths of the guns crossed. Like a giant X in front of the pilot. Hard to judge at 400 mph. He was able to figure that out. I salut you sir. If you have passed RIP.

Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Since when is a BF-109 a "twin engine" fighter?

The dude was a certified badass!!

Can you imagine what he would of done if he was piloting a P51 Mustang?

I was Infantry and relate to the tracer issue. You start shooting any distance, and the tracers are higher than the regular rounds as they have no lead core, just the chemical powder and they work both ways LOL. You have to know your rifle and use your sights or of course today, the gadgets which as so good that a 3 year old can be a marksman until the battery dies, the lens cracks or fogs up etc. Learn to shoot, then learn the gadgets both. It is getting too expensive with all this foolishness for a full spectrum war which includes draftees.

Great video.Thanks DARK DOCS!

there were 2 aces named heinz schmidt in the luftwaffe. the one pictured and expounded on was not shot down by clive. the heinz schmidt pictured was a high scoring ace in the eastern theater who was killed a couple years later by friendly fire. clives first victory was heinz schmidt of the jg 27 with 6 kills. seems he was killed.

I recommend reading the book "A Higher Call" about Charlie Brown and Franz Stiegler. Franz' squadron leader, Gustav Roedel, said to Franz Stigler before his first mission in North Africa: "If I ever see or hear of you shooting at a man in a parachute, I will shoot you myself! You follow the rules of war for you, not for the enemy. You fight by rules to keep your humanity." A code of conduct Clive Caldwell chose not to follow.

A BF- 109 twin engine fighter? These videos are always WEIRDLY INACCURATE!. Only reason I watch them.

Caldwell reminds me of Canadian George "Buzz" Beurling aka the eagle of Malta who also didn't use incendiary bullets and had 31 victories!!!

He had himself an action packed career, smiling for cameras!

One of my Uncles was an aircraft mechanic in nth Africa, Borneo and PNG .. he would certainly have known of this man

Why would a British RAF Unit in North Africa during WWII on the Egypt/Libya border *choose* to switch from flying hurricanes-effective fighters at *both* high and low altitudes--to flying American Curtiss P-40s, which were effective only at lower altitudes and were difficult to land bc of their narrow undercarriages? My impression of the P-40 is that--though it *could* be a competent fighter in the hands of very skilled pilots, as the Flying Tigers of China were for a while against Japan--it was essentially a nearly-obsolete plane by the end of the 1930s, being quickly surpassed by abler, faster, and nimbler fighters such as the hurricane, Spitfire, BF109, FW190, the P38 Lightning, the P47 Thinderbolt, and of course the P51 Mustang.

3:59 A Me Bf 109 twin engine fighter..... U-huh.... Great research work again....

Another Aussie Legend .. I was surprised to learn that it was a common practice to shoot pilots etc who bail out . I was under the impression that you did not shoot anybody in a parachute and it was also another form of respect . This excluded the Japanese , as they routinely shoot pilots in chutes .. Looks like I maybe wrong again . Question .. a German soldier was different to a Nazi . A German soldier was a normal soldier , like the general infantry of a country . where as the Nazi / SS was a soldier who operated outside normal fields . They where the ones who dealt with the murder of the Jews and most atrocities from WW2 All countries committed various crimes but the Nazi was in a league of there own

At 4:00 in the video he says the Messerschmidt 109 was a twin engine fighter! Who knew? Heck, maybe they had an extra engine hidden somewhere that was really tiny?

Seriously, this Australian pilot was the best of the allies aces.

When referring to RAF, Australian, NZ and Canadian asquadrons, the correct format is as follows: squadrons 1 to100 examples: ‘Eighty seven squadron’, ‘Ninety eight squadron’, -‘One Hundred Sqn’ Squadrons beyond 100 examples: ‘ 0ne-One-Two Squadron’, ‘Two-Five-Six Squadron (etc). Use just numerals! Incorrect is prefix ‘Number’ eighty seven,’, ‘The eighty-Seventh Squadron and derivations!

At 3:58. the Me 109 was a SINGLE-engine fighter. It was the Me 110 which was twin-engine.

It's wing commander if you have 3 stripes the same size. Squadron leader when the middle one is smaller. Fyi. Great vid mate.

Suggest you get your facts correct. Caldwell never signed up with the Royal Air Force. He enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force on 27 May 1940, his enlistment papers which he filled in and signed at the time show his actual date of birth - his age at the time did not preclude him from training or service with the RAAF as a pilot. He undertook his pilot training in Australia and was then sent to the Middle East in February 1941, arriving there early March 1941. His RAAF Personnel file covering his wartime enlistment, training and service is available online in digital format on the National Archives of Australia website. His Wiki entry contains a number of errors of fact so should not be considered a reliable source of information on him.

Brilliant stuff...great music...

Wow!

Is this the same Clive Caldwell that did art for TSR in the 1970's and 80's?

Cool-thank you.

4:00 " BF-109 twin-engine fighter". I don't think so. BF-110 I would believe.

At 13:13 the zero crashing in flames is a clip from the 1943 movie Air Force. And it’s a fairly well done miniature, not a real aorcraft.

What a unit 💪

One bad hombre! Shows to go ya, toughness and skill can outweigh equipment limitations and numerical disadvantage. It's one thing when the enemy knows your name. It's a whole nuther level when they give you a nickname. FYI, Geneva Convention does forbid shooting parachutists from disable aircraft, but if you win the war then who's going to press the crime.

sigh. in capuzzo, libya, he did not take down a bf 109 twin engine fighter, the only bf 109 with twin engines was a twin fuselage that was never built.

Op Crusader, Mates needed help, all that was needed to be said, from fellow ANZAC.

What a bad ass!!

I wouldn't trust an Aussie pilot if he wasn't drunk.

4:25 I wouldn't say it was common. It did happen from time to time both sides considered it cowardly and vile. When a good pilot saw such an attack they would often pick away at the airplane that did it until the pilot had to bail out. It doesn't take a doctorate degree to know what would happen next.

Caldwell evoked intense jealousy in the middle and upper echelons of the RAAF, more than 40 years after the end of the war there was found an internal memo in the RAAF dictating that Caldwell was never to be given a combat role or command of an operational unit!

No matter what the reason or excuse any of them give on any side of that war, shooting a man who was parachuting is murder.

The war in North Africa has been said to be very much like naval warfare and the air fighting was very much like the it was in the Pacific carrier fights with almost all air fighting happening below 20K feet.

@4:00 you said he “took down a BF109 TWIN engine fighter.” Am I missing something?? 🧐

@4:00 A Bf-109 is a single-engjne plane.

10:21. These are 3 SBD "Dauntless" planes, NOT Japanese Zeros.

Why was a a momentary clip of a Chinese Flying Tiger included?

Aussie Aussie Aussie , Darwin is a city with a harbour.... 🤘✌️🇦🇺

4:00 I think you mean he shot down a BF "110" twin engine fighter (not a 109)

4:09 - “BF-109 twin engine fighter” -> ??

P40 wasn't ready for first world contemporaries ie Messerschmitt 109

'Twin' engined 109 ?

@5:28, narrator describes what can only be considered a war crime, shooting men in parachutes. Anything else he did, however heroic it may have been, is tainted by this admission. He is a war criminal, but because he fought for the Allies, he was never tried, convicted, and punished as such.

Was that a Lancaster being shot up at 5:35 ?

Caldwell would shoot enemies in parachutes …. Depending on where they ejected

Do you mean a BF 110, as the 109 is a single engine plane

Dhot down a BF209 tein engined fighter???

I can find no trace of a Heinz Schmidt flying in North Africa toe. The one documented, whose photo matches the one in the clip, never went to NA but fought on Eastern front where he eventually went MIA in Ukrain 9/5/1943.

Bf100 was not a twin engine AC. Bf110 is... Also Ju97 ?

A twin.engined Bf109????

Twin engined Bf109?

You got so wrong about Polish pilots that I could not believe hiring it . That group was known as " Circus of Skalski " , hand picked pilots from different Polish squadrons in Britain with great experience. They were attached to 215 Caldwell squadron , but flew independently , only 6 aircraft at any time . Within couple months they shot down 25 or so enemy aircraft's (not mentioning probables and damages )loosing only one of their own pilots Mieczyslaw Wyszkowski ( p.o..w.) . So please next time prepare yourself better !!! ❤

It’s one thing to fly. But man, these guys are shooting at you……..

There is no rank in the RAF as a 'Flight Commander'. It's a position.

It's amazing how Luftwaffe pilots got so many more kills than the Allied pilots did... I can understand that they were required to serve longer and go on more sorties but some of them had kills in the hundreds!

JU 87s pretty much sitting ducks the flew so slow.

He was flying a Hawker huricane not a p40

A BF 109 is a single engine fighter not a twin engine fighter. It's at 4.01.

So, they became so silly over politics that they trumped up drinking charges to push out their greatest ace and combat leader. He wasn't just an ace, but a killer of enemy aces! Fat chair bound officers who never even heard the sound of gunfire no doubt.

Shot down a twin engine ME 109 ?

I read he was 6' 2 1/2" tall - I'm surprised he was allowed in the air force. That deal about selling alcohol seems like a really bonehead idea on his part. I wish there was more detail about how that shadow technique worked.... was he bascially just leading the target? Yea, war is like that - 2 men who don't know each other are fighting to the death... One of my favorite quotes in all the world and for all time is... "they shall learn war no more"....look that one up !

Feckless senior brass

What is a JU97?. An 87 that's ten feet longer maybe?.

A Messerchmit Bf109 is not a "two engined fighter". There is no such rank as "Flight-Commander" in the RAF. There is no such plane as a Ju 97. There is a Ju 87 (Stuka). Otherwise, pretty good.

Was he a conscript?

follow all the dark channels This narrator is best.👍 Kudos to the rest of crew.also.👍 If I may request.. give credits to movie clips. ..shorts are public domain? ..maybe that clip will spark....a tangent🙏

"BF109 twin engined fighter" ??

4:00 Me-110, not 109.

JU-97???

Goes to show you how uninformed, unskilled, and unintelligent military selection boards are.

Better you than me

Please be respectful to our American brothers, they don’t know anything but they mean well and have a very inventive imagination, on top of that some have even managed to learn to speak some English.

C L I V E !!! YEAH

The lesson here kids is, DON'T MESS WITH AUSSIES, THEY DON'T BACK DOWN. LMAO

So... he killed 5 in one day... and you say decimated? That means to reduce by 10% I think you been destroyed their asses. Not DECIMATED.