Air Vice Marshal Henry Neilson Wrigley, (21 April 1892 – 14 September 1987) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A pioneering flyer and aviation scholar, he piloted the first trans-Australia flight from Melbourne to Darwin in 1919, and afterwards laid the groundwork for the RAAF's air power doctrine. During World War I, Wrigley joined the Australian Flying Corps and saw combat with No. 3 Squadron on the Western Front, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross; he later commanded the unit and published a history of its wartime exploits. He was awarded the Air Force Cross for his 1919 cross-country flight.
Wrigley was a founding member of the RAAF in 1921 and held staff posts in the ensuing years. In 1936, he was promoted to group captain and took command of RAAF Station Laverton. Raised to air commodore soon after the outbreak of World War II, he became Air Member for Personnel in November 1940. One of his tasks was organising the newly established Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force and selecting its director, Clare Stevenson, in 1941. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire the same year. Wrigley served as Air Officer Commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters, London, from September 1942 until his retirement from the military in June 1946. He died in 1987 at the age of ninety-five. His writings on air power were collected and published posthumously as The Decisive Factor in 1990.
Early life and World War I
Henry Neilson Wrigley was born on 21 April 1892 in Collingwood, a suburb of Melbourne, to Henry and Beatrice Wrigley.Dennis et al., The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History, pp. 606–609Draper, Who's Who in Australia 1985, p. 924 He was educated at Richmond Central School and at Melbourne High School, where he joined the cadets. Studying at the University of Melbourne, he became a state school teacher and a member of the militia before the outbreak of World War I.Department of Defence, Personnel File, p. 5 He joined the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) on 5 October 1916. Wrigley trained as a pilot under the tutelage of Lieutenant Eric Harrison at Central Flying School in Point Cook, Victoria, before departing Melbourne on 25 October aboard a troopship bound for Europe.Stephens, The Royal Australian Air Force, pp. 9–10
After further training in England, Wrigley was posted to France and flew on the Western Front with No. 3 Squadron AFC (also known until 1918 as No. 69 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps). Operating Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8s, the unit was engaged in reconnaissance, artillery-spotting and ground support duties.Wilson, The Brotherhood of Airmen, pp. 19–21 Having been promoted to captain, Wrigley was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his "exceptional devotion to duty", in particular his persistence in pressing home an attack against enemy infantry on 29 October 1918 in the face of "intense machine gun and rifle fire"; the honour was promulgated in the London Gazette on 3 June 1919. Wrigley later observed that most wartime aircraft were "impossible to fight in", and that senior officers were "too occupied with coaxing aeroplanes into the air and teaching pilots to bring them down again without breaking their necks" to consider the wider implications of air power.O'Loghlin; Stephens, "The Air Power Notebooks of Air Vice-Marshal H.N. Wrigley", pp. 43–51
Between the wars
Wrigley became a No. 3 Squadron commanding officer in January 1919, and returned to Australia on 6 May.Department of Defence, Personnel File, p. 4 Later that year he took part in the first transcontinental flight across Australia, from Melbourne to Darwin, to coincide with the first England-to-Australia flight. Accompanied by his mechanic and former schoolmate, Sergeant Arthur "Spud" Murphy, Wrigley departed Point Cook on 16 November and arrived in Port Darwin on 12 December, having travelled some in forty-seven flying hours. The men flew in a single-engined Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2, with no radio, over unmapped and often hazardous terrain, and surveyed seventeen potential landing fields along the way.Stephens, The Royal Australian Air Force, p. 26Wilson, The Brotherhood of Airmen, p. 32 Wrigley considered the choice of Murphy as his cohort "a particularly happy one" but called the aircraft they were assigned "an obsolete type, even for training purposes", while conceding that "it was structurally sound and airworthy".Coulthard-Clark, The Third Brother, pp. 14–17 In recognition of their achievement the men were each awarded the Air Force Cross, gazetted on 12 July 1920. Such was the perceived danger of the expedition that while making preparations for the flight back they received a telegram from the Defence Department ordering them to dismantle the B.E.2 and return with it by ship.
On 1 January 1920, Wrigley transferred to the Australian Air Corps (AAC), a temporary organisation formed by the Army following disbandment of the wartime AFC.Coulthard-Clark, The Third Brother, pp. 17–18 He was appointed adjutant at Central Flying School the following month.Coulthard-Clark, The Third Brother, p. 20 In 1921, Wrigley joined the newly established Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as a flight lieutenant. Popularly known as "Wrig", he was one of the original twenty-one officers on the Air Force's strength at its formation that March.Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, p. 16 Stephens, The Royal Australian Air Force, p. 42 For the next seven years he held staff posts at RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne, beginning with the position of staff officer to the Director of Personnel and Training.Coulthard-Clark, Air Marshals of the RAAF, p. 38 On 5 July 1922, Wrigley married Marjorie Rees; the couple had a son and a daughter. The same month, he replaced Flight Lieutenant Frank McNamara as Staff Officer (Operations and Intelligence).Coulthard-Clark, A Hero's Dilemma, p. 65 He served as RAAF Training Officer from March 1923 to April 1925—during which time he was promoted to squadron leader—before being appointed Director of Organisation and Staff Duties.Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, p. 712 In November 1927, he took part in an attempt to make the first night flight from Sydney to Melbourne. Taking off from RAAF Station Richmond in an Airco DH.9, Wrigley and his co-pilot were in the air for six hours and covered before a broken fuel line forced them to land for repairs; they completed the journey the following day.Roylance, Air Base Richmond, p. 27
Wrigley travelled to England in 1928 to attend RAF Staff College, Andover, becoming one of the first RAAF officers to complete the course.Stephens; Isaacs, High Fliers, pp. 36–39 Remaining in England, he was appointed Australian Air Liaison Officer to the Air Ministry in 1929. That October, he initiated correspondence with the British Air Council to discuss a proposal for the RAAF to adopt as its own the Royal Air Force's motto Per Ardua Ad Astra; informal approval was granted by letter to Wrigley in March 1930.Coulthard-Clark, The Third Brother, p. 84 Returning to Australia, he became Director of Operations and Intelligence at RAAF Headquarters in October 1930, and Director of Organisation and Staff Duties in December 1931.Department of Defence, Personnel File, p. 8 He was promoted to wing commander in December 1932. In 1935 he published his history of No. 3 Squadron, The Battle Below, which was considered an authoritative treatment on the subject of army co-operation. He was promoted group captain in July 1936, and that October took over as commanding officer of RAAF Station Laverton, Victoria, from Group Captain McNamara. Wrigley handed over the station's command to Group Captain Adrian Cole in February 1939.RAAF Historical Section, Units of the Royal Australian Air Force, pp. 144–145 In May 1939, Wrigley served as the senior expert assessor on the panel of an inquiry into three recent accidents involving Avro Ansons; the full report handed down in October found that training on the type followed the syllabus, but that pilots needed more practical experience in dealing with in-flight incidents, as human error was the likely explanation for at least one crash.Coulthard-Clark, The Third Brother, pp. 349–350
World War II
As part of the RAAF's reorganisation following the outbreak of World War II, No. 1 Group was formed under Wrigley's command in Melbourne on 20 November 1939, to oversee the operations of air bases and units in Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, p. 67. Ashworth, How Not to Run an Air Force!, p. 23. Promoted air commodore, in 1940 Wrigley served as Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Southern Area, the successor organisation to No. 1 Group, before taking up the position of Air Member for Personnel (AMP) in November that year.Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, pp. 91–92. Ashworth, How Not to Run an Air Force!, pp. 301–302. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1941 New Year Honours. As AMP, Wrigley's responsibilities included organising the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), established on 25 March 1941 as the first uniformed women's branch of an armed service in the country.Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, pp. 99–100. He believed that recruiting servicewomen was essential to augment the many ground staff required to support the war effort, and considered that although such an organisation should be constitutionally separate from the RAAF, its members should be closely integrated within the current force structure.Thomson, The WAAAF in Wartime Australia, p. 70.
The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) was at this time an RAF officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, who hoped to see his daughter Sybil-Jean, a veteran of Britain's Women's Auxiliary Air Force, take charge of the WAAAF. Wrigley successfully argued against this, telling Burnett that there had already been "enough public outcry" over a non-Australian being named CAS, and there would be "a further public outcry" if anyone other than an Australian was appointed WAAAF Director.Thomson, The WAAAF in Wartime Australia, pp. 52–54. On 21 May, he selected Berlei executive Clare Stevenson as WAAAF Director, passing over temporary appointee Mary Bell, wife of a serving RAAF group captain. Wrigley chose Stevenson on the basis of her management background and because she was not a "socialite".Dennis et al., The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History, p. 606. Bell, who was offered the position of deputy director, chose to resign from the WAAAF on learning of Stevenson's appointment, but Wrigley later convinced her to rejoin. Meanwhile, Wrigley played a leading part in the development of the Air Training Corps, formed in April 1941 to facilitate basic training for youths aged sixteen to eighteen who hoped to become RAAF aircrew.Stephens, Going Solo, p. 332.Gillison, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, p. 101.