Frederick Scherger
Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Rudolph William Scherger, KBE, CB, DSO, AFC was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. He served as Chief of the Air Staff, the RAAF’s highest-ranking position, from 1957 until 1961, and as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1961 until 1966. Born in Victoria of German origins, Scherger graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, before transferring to the Air Force in 1925.
About Frederick Scherger in brief
Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Rudolph William Scherger, KBE, CB, DSO, AFC was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. He served as Chief of the Air Staff, the RAAF’s highest-ranking position, from 1957 until 1961, and as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1961 until 1966. Born in Victoria of German origins, Scherger graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, before transferring to the Air Force in 1925. He was considered one of the top aviators between the wars, serving as a fighter pilot, test pilot, and flying instructor. He retired in 1975 and lived in Melbourne until his death in 1984 at the age of seventy-nine. His ancestry and surname made him the object of xenophobia in his childhood during World War I, which carried on into the early part of his military career and beyond. As late as 1941, an anonymous letter writer from RAAF Station Wagga would tell Prime Minister Robert Menzies that his ‘blood ran cold’ at the notion of someone called ‘Scherger’ commanding trainee Australian pilots. He made the first public freefall descent in Australia, at Essendon, Victoria on 21 August 1926, under the tutelage of Flying Officer Ellis Wackett. In February 1927, he was asked by the commanding officer of No. 1 Flying Training School to drop a message to a woman at Melbourne before she departed on a steamer. After doing so, he illegally flew his S.E.5 fighter between Port 5arf and Point Cook, only to be hauled into office the next morning by a member of the public for dressing down the young pilot in the act of dressing down.
After the war, he served in senior posts, including Deputy Chief of. the Air staff, Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff in Washington, D. C., and commander of Commonwealth air forces during the Malayan Emergency. In 1957, he became Chief ofthe Air Staff, presiding over a significant modernisation of RAAF equipment. In 1965, he become Australia’s first air chief marshal in 1965, and played a leading role in the commitment of troops to the Vietnam War. He died in Melbourne in 1984, and was survived by his wife, two children and a step-daughter. He is buried in the Melbourne suburb of Ararat, Victoria, where he was born on 21 January 1925, and is survived by a son and two step-grandchildren. His grandson, Peter, is a Member of the House of Representatives for the Victorian Legislative Assembly and former chairman of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details. In the U.S. call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org for details.
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