Arthur John Underwood

  General Notes:

Service Record
Name UNDERWOOD, ARTHUR JOHN
Service Royal Australian Air Force
Service Number 42321
Date of Birth 30 Jun 1919
Place of Birth KEW, VIC
Date of Enlistment 12 Aug 1941
Locality on Enlistment KYABRAM, VIC
Place of Enlistment MELBOURNE, VIC
Next of Kin UNDERWOOD, WALTER
Date of Discharge 21 May 1946
Rank Leading Aircraftman
Posting at Discharge 54 BASE
WW2 Honours and Gallantry None for display
Prisoner of War No

Straight shooter had history in his sights
RUTH MATHEWSON

Name: Arthur John Underwood
Occupation: Retired photographer
Service: Light Horse Brigade, 38th Infantry Battalion and squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force
Service numbers: AIF V25485; RAAF 42321
Born: Kew, Victoria, June 30, 1919
Enlisted: AIF - Kyabram, September 21, 1940;
RAAF - Melbourne, August 12, 1941
Family: Married Beryl. Four children and two grandchildren

ARTHUR Underwood fired hundreds of shots when he landed in Germany with the RAAF's 453 Spitfire Squadron in 1945.
The leading aircraftman captured dozens of soldiers, civilians, prisoners, townsfolk, men, women and children.
Anyone who walked the streets of war-ravaged Berlin was fair game.
The people and places Underwood captured, frame by frame on his prized Leica, came home with him and, 60 years on and half a world away, bear witness to the shocking devastation.
"(Berlin) was flattened, absolutely flattened," said Mr Underwood, a professional photographer.
"There's one street there that leads right up to the Berlin Gate, with the horses on top of the gate. On either side, there were huge gardens with statues all over the place.
"It must have been a beautiful city before the war. It's a terrible thing, war, for what it does to people and continents and cities."
The Victorian soldier, a Queensland resident for 35 years, was an RAAF technician who kept Australian pilots aloft in their Lancaster bombers, Spitfires, Vultee Vengeance Dive Bombers and other aircraft.
He served in Darwin, helping to rid the skies of the Japanese Zeros, and on several bases in Australia and in Egypt before going to the 460 Squadron in England _ the famous Lancaster Bomber group whose last mission saw them bomb Hitler's Eagle's Nest, Berchtesgaden, on Anzac Day 1945.

"It's a terrible thing, war, for what it does to people and continents and cities."

Mr Underwood had signed up with the Light Horse Brigade, the 38th Infantry Battalion, at the age of 21, before transferring to the RAAF.
He worked initially as a photographer, using his civilian skills, before retraining and upgrading to the better-paid role of electrical instrument maker.
"It was our job to make sure all the instruments to the aircraft were operating properly," he said. "We had to check all the aircraft before they flew. If we didn't sign the book, it wouldn't fly."
Mr Underwood shot places and faces throughout the war, snapping his mates and the aircraft they flew, and sometimes handing the camera over and stepping in front of the lens.
His last job \emdash as part of the occupation forces in the city of Wunstorf, near Hannover, and in Berlin \emdash left him full of sorrow for the destruction and wonder at the human spirit.
"I took some photographs of the devastation," he said. "It was terrible. But the people I met, they didn't seem to have any resentment. They were lovely people. They didn't spit on us or walk the other way.
"I'd have hundreds of 35mm negs which I've never even printed yet."
After returning to Australia in early 1946, Mr Underwood set up a photographic business in the main street of his hometown, Kyabram, Victoria.
A few years later, a young English nurse, Beryl Davis, walked in to have her passport photo taken.
Beryl Davis had travelled to Australia as an 18-year-old as part of a scheme to "borrow" nurses from Britain. She had been nursing sister of the Kyabram Bush Nursing Hospital for a year, and figured it was time to head home.
The two hit it off, had four children \emdash Glen, David, Stephen and Karen \emdash and moved the family north to Coochiemudlo Island in 1971 where Beryl was always on call as the community's volunteer nurse.
When Arthur retired in 1980, the couple moved back to the mainland. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in March 2005 and have two grandchildren.

  Noted events in his life were:

• connection.

• Birth Certificate: (22525).

Arthur married Beryl Julia Davis, daughter of Davis and Ada Elizabeth, in 1955. (Beryl Julia Davis was born circa 1920.)