Don Charlwood

Donald Ernest Cameron Charlwood

While best known for No Moon Tonight, his fictionalised memoir of life as a crew member in RAF Bomber Command (the fiction is revealed by comparing his straight autobiographical account of those experiences, Journeys into Night), Charlwood wrote a number of other biographical, fiction and non-fiction works.

Early life

Born in

In May 1943, Charlwood and his course travelled to England, on the Polish liner MS Batory anchoring on the River Clyde on the evening of 12 May. Here the course was split, with Charlwood and half of them posted to No. 3 Advanced Flying Unit, Bobbington, between the Severn Valley and Birmingham. After completing Advanced Flying, aircrew were posted to Operational Training Units, their entry into combat operations. Charlwood was posted to No, 27 OTU, Lichfield – a unit that fed Bomber Command. He had almost 200 hours flying time.

At Tatenhill, a satellite airfield of Lichfield, Charlwood, with Pilot Geoff Maddern, crewed up to form a crew of five – the basis of all his future flying in Bomber Command. On 1 August 1942 they flew together as a crew for the first time, in a

When back problems ended his flying career in the US, Charlwood returned to Australia. On route to Australia, Charlwood detoured to Edmonton, Canada, where he married Nell East, who he had first met when training as a Navigator in 1941.[5]

Following his return to Australia he was invalided out of the RAAF in July 1945, and commenced work with the

By 1965, when he came to write All the Green Year, he and wife Nell had four children, including two teenage daughters.^[6]

He became Vice President of the Victorian branch of the Fellowship of Australian writers in 1975 and held the position for 15 years.^[7]

In 1992, Charlwood was made a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of service to literature.^[8] He died in June 2012.

Books / Critical reception

All the Green Year (1965) has been described as a perceptive observation of Australian childhood. The critic A. A. Phillips wrote, "The first part reads as a book about boys; the second part – the flight from home – as a book for boys".^[9] The book sold more than 100,000 copies and there were 21 editions between 1965 and 1983.^[9][10] All the Green Year features in the anthology, The Australian Collection: Australia's Greatest Books.^[9]

In 1980, All the Green Year was made into a television series.

No Moon Tonight (1956) and Journeys into Night (1991) have been described as among the finest autobiographical works on Bomber Command in World War II.^[11][12]

Bibliography

Autobiographical

• No Moon Tonight, Angus and Robertson, 1956.
• Marching as to War, Hudson, 1990.
  Christina Stead Award
  in 1990)
• Journeys Into Night, Hudson, 1991.
  ISBN 978-0-949873-37-8

• All the Green Year, Angus and Robertson, 1965.

Short Story Collection

• Flight and Time, Neptune Press, 1979.
  ISBN 978-0-909131-21-0

• An Afternoon of Time, Angus and Robertson, 1966.
• Take-Off to Touchdown: The Story of Air Traffic Control, Angus and Robertson, 1967.
• The Wreck of the Loch Ard: End of a Ship, End of an Era, Angus and Robertson, 1971.
  ISBN 978-0-207-12316-0
• Wrecks and Reputations: The Loss of the Schomberg and Loch Ard, Angus and Robertson, 1977.
  ISBN 978-0-207130-65-6
• Settlers Under Sail, Premier's Department, 1978.
  ISBN 978-0-7241-1684-3
• The Long Farewell, Penguin Books, 1981.
  ISBN 978-0-7139-1428-3
• The Wreck of the Sailing Ship Netherby: A Miracle of Survival, Burgewood Books, 2005.
  ISBN 978-1-876425-18-0

External links

• Australian War Memorial Service Record Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• Australian War Memorial profile Archived 5 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
• Donald Ernest Cameron Charlwood, as Flight Lieutenant (408794) interviewed for the Keith Murdoch Sound Archive – Australian War Memorial
• Don Charlwood's Twenty Men
• Burgewood Books
• Daily Telegraph (UK) obituary