Joe Hewitt (RAAF Officer) - Later Life and Legacy

Later Life and Legacy

Following his retirement from the Air Force in 1956, Hewitt joined International Harvester Co. Australia as Manager of Education and Training. He became a trustee of the Services Canteen Trust the same year, serving in this position until 1977. Having retired from International Harvester in 1966, Hewitt became an author in later life and wrote two books on his experiences in the military. The first, Adversity in Success, was published in 1980 and gave his account of the air war in the South West Pacific. He followed it in 1984 with The Black One. Hewitt also acted as chairman and managing director of his own publishing house, Langate Publishing. Predeceased by his wife Lorna, he died on 1 November 1985.

Hewitt is credited with being primarily responsible for the "education revolution" that took place in the RAAF between 1945 and 1953, his initiatives while Air Member for Personnel being carried on by his successor in the position, Air Vice Marshal Frank Bladin. According to Air Force historians Alan Stephens and Keith Isaacs, the importance of RAAF College and the Apprenticeship Training Scheme in contributing to the professionalism of the post-war service "cannot be over-stated". Air Vice Marshal Ernie Hey, the Air Member for Technical Services from 1960 through 1972, declared that the apprenticeship programme was "one of the best things" the RAAF ever established and its graduates—numbering some 5,500 from 1952 to 1993—as "absolutely outstanding". Joe Hewitt is commemorated by Hewitt Reef in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, named in his honour by the survey team on HMAS Moresby, with whom he worked as a member of No. 101 Flight in 1926–28.