William Bostock
Air Vice Marshal William Dowling Bostock, CB, DSO, OBE was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. During World War II he led RAAF Command, the Air Force’s main operational formation, with responsibility for the defence of Australia and air offensives against Japanese targets in the South West Pacific Area. His achievements in the role earned him the Distinguished Service Order and the American Medal of Freedom. He was considered a leading candidate for the position of Chief of the Air Staff in 1942 but was passed over in favour of Air Commodore George Jones.
About William Bostock in brief
Air Vice Marshal William Dowling Bostock, CB, DSO, OBE was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. During World War II he led RAAF Command, the Air Force’s main operational formation, with responsibility for the defence of Australia and air offensives against Japanese targets in the South West Pacific Area. His achievements in the role earned him the Distinguished Service Order and the American Medal of Freedom. General Douglas MacArthur described him as ‘one of the world’s most successful airmen’ He was considered a leading candidate for the position of Chief of the Air Staff in 1942 but was passed over in favour of Air Commodore George Jones, a friend of twenty years. Following his retirement from the RAAF in 1946, he became a journalist and later a Federal Member of Parliament. He was awarded the Belgian Croix de guerre for his service on the Western Front in World War I. He also received the Australian Order of Merit for his bravery in the Battle of the Bulge. He died of a heart attack at the age of 69 in Sydney in 1973. He is buried in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills. He had two daughters, one of whom, Gwendolen Joan, would serve as a cipher officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air force during World War Two. He has a son, William, and a daughter, Mary, who were both born in New South Wales in the early 20th century. He served in the Australian Imperial Force and the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.
He joined the newly formed Royal Air Force in 1921 and by 1941 had risen to become its third most senior officer, serving as Director of Training from 1930 to 1931, commanding officer of No. 3 Squadron from 1931 to 1936, and Director of Operations and Intelligence from 1938 to 1939. He became involved in a bitter and long-running dispute with Jones over control of the air force in theSouth West Pacific. He retired from the RAF and returned to civilian life in Australia that October. He later served as a journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Mail. He went on to become a member of the Australian Institute of Architects and the Australian Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His daughter Gwendole Joan was a cipher Officer in the WAAF during the Second World War and served as an officer with the Women’s Auxiliary Australia Air Force (WAAF) during the war. Bostocks was awarded a DSO and a CB for his services to the RAF in the First and Second World Wars. He received a OBE for his part in the battle of Gallipoli in 1915. He married his Australian fiancée in 1919 and had two children. He lived in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Burwood and later moved to Burwood, in the Blue Mountains region of New South NSW, where he was employed as an apprentice with the Marconi Company for two-and-a-half years, and spent time at sea as a wireless operator.
You want to know more about William Bostock?
This page is based on the article William Bostock published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
