Andrew William "Nicky" Barr, (10 December 1915 – 12 June 2006) was a member of the Australian national rugby union team, who became a fighter ace in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. He was credited with 12 aerial victories, all scored flying the Curtiss P-40 fighter.
Born in New Zealand, Barr was raised in Victoria and first represented the state in rugby in 1936. Selected to play for Australia in the United Kingdom in 1939, he had just arrived in England when the tour was cancelled following the outbreak of war. He joined the RAAF in 1940 and was posted to North Africa with No. 3 Squadron in September 1941. The squadron's highest-scoring ace, he attained his first three victories in the P-40 Tomahawk and the remainder in the P-40 Kittyhawk.
Barr's achievements as a combat pilot earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar. Shortly after taking command of No. 3 Squadron in May 1942, he was shot down and captured by Axis forces, and incarcerated in Italy. He escaped and assisted other Allied fugitives to safety, receiving for his efforts the Military Cross, a rare honour for an RAAF pilot. Repatriated to England, he saw action during the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 before returning to Australia as chief instructor with No. 2 Operational Training Unit. After the war he became a company director, and rejoined the RAAF as an active reserve officer from 1951 to 1953. From the early 1960s he was heavily involved in the oilseed industry, for which he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1983. He died in 2006, aged 90.
Early career Andrew Barr was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 10 December 1915; he had a twin brother, Jack. The family moved to Australia when the boys were six. Growing up in Melbourne, Andrew attended Kew Public School and played Australian rules football. He was also the Victorian Schoolboys' 100 yards athletics champion three years in succession, from 1926 to 1928. In 1931, aged fifteen, he began his association with the Lord Somers Camp and Power House social and sporting organisations located at Western Port. After leaving school, Barr studied construction at Swinburne Technical College, but later took a diploma course in accountancy and made it his profession. He started playing rugby union in 1935 through a friend in the Power House club. Weighing and just under tall, Barr gained selection for Victoria as a hooker the following year. In 1939, he was chosen to play in the United Kingdom with the Australian national team, the Wallabies. The tour was cancelled less than a day after the team arrived in the UK on 2 September, due to the outbreak of World War II.Dornan 2005, pp. 5–8 Keen to serve as a fighter pilot, Barr initially tried to enlist in the Royal Air Force, but withdrew his application when told that it was unlikely he would fly anytime in the near future, and that he could expect only administrative duties in the interim.Dornan 2005, pp. 9–10
Returning to Australia on the RMS Strathaird, Barr joined the Royal Australian Air Force as an air cadet on 4 March 1940.Barr; Stokes 1990 After undergoing instruction on Tiger Moths at No. 3 Elementary Flying Training School, Essendon, and on Hawker Demons and Avro Ansons at No. 1 Service Flying Training School, Point Cook, he was commissioned as a pilot officer on 24 September.Dornan 2005, pp. 10–12 He gained a reputation as something of a rebel during training, and became forever known as "Nicky", for "Old Nick", or the Devil. In his quest to gain assignment as a fighter pilot, he had deliberately aimed poorly during bombing practice, a stratagem also adopted by at least two of his fellow students. By November 1940, he had been posted to No. 23 (City of Brisbane) Squadron, flying CAC Wirraways on patrol off the Queensland coast. The aircraft was, according to Barr, "our front line fighter in those days, but it didn't take too long to realise that the capacity of the Wirraway, compared with the types of planes that we were going to encounter, left much to be desired". Though his duties frustrated him somewhat, Barr was grateful to have this extensive flight experience under his belt when he eventually saw combat. While based in Queensland, he served as honorary aide-de-camp to the Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson, and also captained the RAAF rugby union team.Dornan 2005, pp. 15–17 He was promoted to flying officer on 24 March 1941.
Combat service
Barr was posted to North Africa on 28 September 1941, to fly with No. 3 Squadron under the command of Squadron Leader Peter Jeffrey.Garrisson 1999, pp. 113–115Dornan 2005, p. 22 He converted to P-40 Tomahawk fighters at an RAF operational training unit in Khartoum. There he also received his "goolie chit", a piece of paper to be shown to local tribesmen in the event he was shot down, reading in Arabic: "don't kill the bearer, feed him and protect him, take him to the English and you will be rewarded. Peace be upon you."Dornan 2005, pp. 23–25 Returning to North Africa, Barr achieved his first aerial victory, over a Messerschmitt Bf 110, on 12 December. He followed this up with a Junkers Ju 88 and a Messerschmitt Bf 109 the next day. The squadron then re-equipped with P-40 Kittyhawks; Barr was flying the new model when he became an ace on New Year's Day 1942, shooting down two Junkers Ju 87 Stukas.Thomas 2005, pp. 22–23 On 8 March, he led a flight of six Kittyhawks to intercept a raid on Tobruk by twelve Ju 87s escorted by ten Macchi C. 202s and two Bf 109s. The Australians destroyed six Macchis and three Ju 87s without loss, Barr personally accounting for one of the Macchis.Herington 1954, pp. 223–224
Eventually credited with victories over twelve enemy aircraft, plus two probables and eight damaged, Barr became No. 3 Squadron's highest-scoring member.Newton 1996, pp. 65–66 He flew a total of eighty-four combat sorties, twenty of them in one fortnight, and six on 16 June 1942 alone.Herington 1954, p. 241 His philosophy was that the P-40 was not a top-class fighter, but that its shortcomings "could be offset by unbridled aggression", so he resolved to treat aerial combat as he would a boxing match and "overcome much better opponents by simply going for them". Bobby Gibbes became No. 3 Squadron's commanding officer in February 1942, and made Barr his senior flight commander.Dornan 2005, pp. 80–81 Promoted to flight lieutenant on 1 April, Barr was raised to acting squadron leader and appointed to command the unit in May, barely six months after he commenced operations, following Gibbes's hospitalisation with a broken ankle.Thomas 2005, p. 33 Barr had never sought leadership of the squadron, and felt that others were just as well qualified for the role.Dornan 2005, pp. 94–95 As a commander he delegated most administrative tasks to his adjutant but, contrary to normal practice, wrote letters to the next-of-kin of casualties himself.
Barr was shot down three times while serving with No. 3 Squadron. The first occasion was on 11 January 1942 when, having destroyed a Bf 109 and a Fiat G.50, he was preparing to touch down in the desert to pick up a fellow pilot who had crash landed. Barr was halfway through lowering his undercarriage when he was "jumped" by two other Bf 109s. He immediately engaged both and shot one down before more German fighters arrived and he was hit and forced to land behind enemy lines.Wilson 2005, pp. 86–87 As one of the German pilotsDelve 2017, p. 159. came in low to strafe the downed Kittyhawk, Barr ran straight at it in an attempt to throw the pilot off his aim, and was injured by fragments of rock sent airborne by the impact of cannon shells. A tribe of friendly Senussi Arabs found him, dressed his wounds, and helped him return to Allied lines.Dornan 2005, pp. 67–73 For his exploit, and his earlier successes, Barr was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), the complete citation being published in the London Gazette on 20 February 1942:
On 25 May 1942, Barr had to land in the desert when his engine overheated. Having just taken off the engine cowling, he spotted enemy tanks approaching and immediately took off with the engine exposed to the elements, safely landing back at base. He was shot down for the second time on 30 May, when he engaged eight Bf 109s and destroyed one before being hit and forced to crash land at high speed in no-man's land. He came down in a minefield during a fierce tank battle, and was forced to remain where he was as troops of both sides slowly converged on him; British forces managed to reach him first and, after treatment for wounds, he again returned to his squadron.Dornan 2005, pp. 106–107 On 26 June, after being attacked by two Bf 109s and bailing out of his burning Kittyhawk, he was captured by Italian soldiers and taken as a prisoner-of-war, first to Tobruk, and then to Italy, where he received hospital treatment for serious wounds.Thomas 2005, p. 38 He later learned that the pilot who shot him down was Oberleutnant Werner Schroer, a Luftwaffe ace credited with sixty-one victories in North Africa.Dornan 2005, pp. 137–138 Bobby Gibbes, having recovered from his own injuries, again took command of No. 3 Squadron.Herington 1954, p. 244 During his incarceration, on 5 February 1943, Barr was awarded a Bar to his DFC for "destroying further enemy aircraft".
Barr tried to escape from his confinement four times. By November 1942 he had recovered sufficiently from the injuries he received in June to break out of the hospital where he was being held in Bergamo, northern Italy.Dornan 2005, pp. 153–155, 158–161 He made his way to the Swiss border, but was challenged by an Italian customs official, whom he struck with a rock before being recaptured. Court-martialled on a charge of murder, he only avoided a death sentence when the Swiss Red Cross colonel representing him located the official and proved that he had not died. Barr was instead sentenced to ninety days solitary confinement in Gavi Prison Camp, Genoa.Dornan 2005, pp. 163–171 In August 1943, with Italy on the verge of surrender, prisoners of war were rounded up for transport to Germany.Dornan 2005, p. 190 Barr jumped from a moving train bound for the Brenner Pass and joined a group of Italian partisans in Pontremoli, remaining at large for two months before again being captured. Taken to a transit camp just over the Austrian border, Barr and fourteen other prisoners escaped by tunnelling under the barbed wire.Dornan 2005, pp. 196–204 Eventually he managed to link up with an Allied special operations unit, which was gathering intelligence behind enemy lines, sabotaging Axis infrastructure, and helping Allied prisoners and Italian refugees escape over the Apennine Mountains along the so-called "Alpine Route".Dornan 2005, pp. 210–211 He was recaptured and escaped once more before finally making it through the Alpine crossing himself, leading a group of more than twenty. After reaching friendly lines in March 1944, he was sent to a military hospital in Vasto, weighing only and in poor health, suffering malaria, malnutrition, and blood poisoning.Dornan 2005, pp. 222–224, 231–239 The assistance he rendered to fellow Allied fugitives earned him the Military Cross (MC) for "Exceptional courage in organising escapes"; the award was gazetted on 1 December 1944. He is thought to be one of only five or six RAAF pilots to receive the MC during World War II.