Roderic Dallas

Roderic Stanley Dallas, DSO, DSC & Bar was an Australian fighter ace of World War I. His score of aerial victories is generally regarded as the second-highest by an Australian, after Robert Little, but there is considerable dispute over Dallas’s exact total. Born on a remote property in rural Queensland, Dallas showed an early interest in aviation. He travelled to England at his own expense and became a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service in August 1915. On the establishment of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, he took command of No. 40 Squadron. He achieved further victories before being killed in action on 1 June 1918.

About Roderic Dallas in brief

Roderic Stanley Dallas, DSO, DSC & Bar was an Australian fighter ace of World War I. His score of aerial victories is generally regarded as the second-highest by an Australian, after Robert Little, but there is considerable dispute over Dallas’s exact total. Born on a remote property in rural Queensland, Dallas showed an early interest in aviation. He travelled to England at his own expense and became a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service in August 1915. On the establishment of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, he took command of No.  40 Squadron. He achieved further victories before being killed in action on 1 June 1918 while on patrol near Liévin in northern France. Dallas was buried in Pernes, New South Wales, and was the first Caucasian child to be born at the remote Mount Stanley station outside Esk, Queensland. He had exceptionally keen eyesight, which he trained by reading small print in small print newspapers at the six-foot length of his family’s family’s house. At 1.88 metres tall, and weighing 101 kg, Dallas would later surprise observers with his ability to fit into the cramped cockpits of fighter planes. Despite his size, he was considered a fine athlete with quick reflexes. Dallas stayed fit through regular exercise at the gym, and played rugby union football. He later transferred to a higher-paying job driving trucks for Iron Island ironstone quarries. In July 1907, Dallas joined the assay office of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, and also enrolled in the local technical college, where he took night classes in chemistry and technical drawing.

In 1913, Dallas was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Australian High Commissioner’s High Commission in London. He was rejected by the Australian Flying Corps, but was introduced to the British Royal Flying Corps by A.J. Jensen, the High Commissioner of Australia. In October 1913, he travelled to London to meet the Prime Minister, A. Jensen, and became an aspirant for the post of High Commissioner. He died in a plane crash in November 1914, aged just 25. He is buried at Mount Stanley, near Esk, in Queensland, with his wife, Honora, and their two children, Stan and Norvel, who were born in 1891 and 1913 respectively. The family later moved to Tenterfield, NSW, and later to Iron Island, where Stan worked as a labourer. He wrote a book about his time in the ironstone quarry, which was published in 1916. He also wrote a biography of his father, Peter MacArthur Dallas, about his experiences in the Iron Island area of Queensland. The book, The First World War, was published by Melbourne University in 1917. It was later republished by The Sydney Morning Herald, in which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, and the Dist distinguished Service Cross and Bar. In the 1930s, he wrote a novel, The Second World War: The Second Half of the Century, about the Battle of Britain.

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