Stanley Goble - Retirement and Legacy

Retirement and Legacy

In January 1946, Goble presided over the court-martial of Australia's top-scoring fighter ace, Group Captain Clive Caldwell. Charged with alcohol trafficking on the island of Morotai in 1945, Caldwell was found guilty and reduced to the rank of flight lieutenant; he left the Air Force soon after. Goble was himself forced into retirement in February 1946, despite being five years below the mandatory age of sixty. The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal George Jones, in recommending Goble's dismissal, wrote that "this officer has a sound Service knowledge and an alert mind, but suffers from certain nervous characteristics which make continuous application to a task impossible". Other senior RAAF commanders who were veterans of World War I, including Richard Williams, were also retired at this time, ostensibly to make way for the advancement of younger officers.

Goble suffered from hypertensive cerebrovascular disease and died in Heidelberg, Victoria, on 24 July 1948. He was cremated, leaving his wife Kathleen, and three sons. His son John (born 1923) joined the Royal Australian Navy and qualified as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, rising to the rank of commodore and commanding 817 Squadron, the naval air station HMAS Albatross, and the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. Goble Street in Hughes, Australian Capital Territory, was named for Jimmy Goble. In 1994 he and Ivor McIntyre were honoured with the issue of a postage stamp by Australia Post, in a series depicting Australian aviators that also included Freda Thompson, Lawrence Hargrave, and Sir Keith and Sir Ross Macpherson Smith.