Henry Wrigley - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

Wrigley became No. 3 Squadron's commanding officer in January 1919, and returned to Australia on 6 May. Later that year he took part in the first transcontinental flight across Australia, from Melbourne to Darwin, to coincide with the first England to Australia flight. Accompanied by his mechanic and former schoolmate, Sergeant Arthur "Spud" Murphy, Wrigley departed Point Cook on 16 November and arrived in Port Darwin on 12 December, having travelled some 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi) in forty-seven flying hours. The men flew in a single-engined Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2, with no radio, over unmapped and often hazardous terrain, and surveyed seventeen potential landing fields along the way. Wrigley considered the choice of Murphy as his cohort "a particularly happy one" but called the aircraft they were assigned "an obsolete type, even for training purposes", while conceding that "it was structurally sound and airworthy." In recognition of their achievement the men were each awarded the Air Force Cross, gazetted on 12 July 1920. Such was the perceived danger of the expedition that while making preparations for the flight back they received a telegram from the Defence Department ordering them to dismantle the B.E.2 and return with it by ship.

On 1 January 1920, Wrigley transferred to the Australian Air Corps (AAC), a temporary organisation formed by the Army following disbandment of the wartime AFC. He was appointed adjutant at Central Flying School the following month. In 1921, Wrigley joined the newly established Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as a flight lieutenant. Popularly known as "Wrig", he was one of the original twenty-one officers on the Air Force's strength at its formation that March. For the next seven years he held staff posts at RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne, beginning with the position of staff officer to the Director of Personnel and Training. On 5 July 1922, Wrigley married Marjorie Rees; the couple had a son and a daughter. The same month, he replaced Flight Lieutenant Frank McNamara as Staff Officer (Operations and Intelligence). He served as RAAF Training Officer from March 1923 to April 1925—during which time he was promoted to squadron leader—before being appointed Director of Organisation and Staff Duties. In November 1927, he took part in an attempt to make the first night flight from Sydney to Melbourne. Taking off from RAAF Station Richmond in an Airco DH.9, Wrigley and his co-pilot were in the air for six hours and covered 345 miles (555 km) when a broken fuel line forced them to land for repairs; they completed the journey the following day.

Wrigley travelled to England in 1928 to attend RAF Staff College, Andover, becoming one of the first RAAF officers to complete the course. Remaining in England, he was appointed Australian Air Liaison Officer to the Air Ministry in 1929. That October, he initiated correspondence with the British Air Council to discuss a proposal for the RAAF to adopt as its own the Royal Air Force's motto Per Ardua Ad Astra; informal approval was granted by letter to Wrigley in March 1930. Returning to Australia, he became Director of Operations and Intelligence at RAAF Headquarters in October 1930, and Director of Organisation and Staff Duties in December 1931. He was promoted to wing commander in December 1932. In 1935 he published his history of No. 3 Squadron, The Battle Below, which was considered an authoritative treatment on the subject of army cooperation. He was promoted group captain in July 1936, and that October took over as commanding officer of RAAF Station Laverton, Victoria, from Group Captain McNamara. Wrigley handed over the station's command to Group Captain Adrian Cole in February 1939. In May 1939, Wrigley served as the senior expert assessor on the panel of an inquiry into three recent accidents involving Avro Ansons; the full report handed down in October found that training on the type followed the syllabus, but that pilots needed more practical experience in dealing with in-flight incidents, as human error was the likely explanation for at least one crash.