Nicky Barr - Combat Service

Combat Service

Barr was posted to North Africa on 28 September 1941, to fly with No. 3 Squadron under the command of Squadron Leader Peter Jeffrey. He converted to P-40D Tomahawk fighters at an RAF operational training unit in Khartoum. There he also received his "goolie chit", a piece of paper to be shown to local tribesmen in the event he was shot down, reading in Arabic: "don't kill the bearer, feed him and protect him, take him to the English and you will be rewarded. Peace be upon you." Returning to North Africa, Barr achieved his first aerial victory, over a Messerschmitt Bf 110, on 12 December. He followed this up with a Junkers Ju 88 and a Messerschmitt Bf 109 the next day. The squadron then re-equipped with P-40E Kittyhawks; Barr was flying the new model when he became an ace on New Year's Day 1942, shooting down two Junkers Ju 87 Stukas. On 8 March, he led a flight of six Kittyhawks to intercept a raid on Tobruk by twelve Ju 87s escorted by ten Macchi C. 202s and two Bf 109s. The Australians destroyed six Macchis and three Ju 87s without loss, Barr personally accounting for one of the Macchis.

Eventually credited with victories over twelve enemy aircraft, plus two probables and eight damaged, Barr became No. 3 Squadron's highest-scoring member. He flew a total of eighty-four combat sorties, twenty of them in one fortnight, and six on 16 June 1942 alone. His philosophy was that the P-40 was not a top-class fighter, but that its shortcomings "could be offset by unbridled aggression", so he resolved to treat aerial combat as he would a boxing match and "overcome much better opponents by simply going for them". Bobby Gibbes became No. 3 Squadron's commanding officer in February 1942, and made Barr his senior flight commander. Promoted to flight lieutenant on 1 April, Barr was raised to acting squadron leader and appointed to command the unit in May, barely six months after he commenced operations, following Gibbes's hospitalisation with a broken leg. Barr had never sought leadership of the squadron, and felt that others were just as well qualified for the role. As a commander he delegated most administrative tasks to his adjutant but, contrary to normal practice, wrote letters to the next-of-kin of casualties himself.

...it had two guns firing from the cockpit and four – two in each wing – to augment it. And I liked very much indeed the loading of the guns when one took off. There was a closeness to combat which seemed to help me with my make-up, the smell of cordite in the cockpit was particularly helpful to me; I really felt that I was at a war.

Nicky Barr on the P-40 Tomahawk, interview, 1990

Three times while serving with No. 3 Squadron, Barr was himself shot down. The first occasion was on 11 January 1942 when, having destroyed a Bf 109 and a Fiat G.50, he was preparing to touch down in the desert to pick up a fellow pilot who had crash landed. He had his undercarriage halfway down when he was "jumped" by two other Bf 109s. He immediately engaged both and shot one down before more German fighters arrived and he was hit and forced to land behind enemy lines. As one of the German planes came in low to strafe the downed Kittyhawk, Barr ran straight at it in an attempt to throw the pilot off his aim, and was injured by ricocheting fragments of rock struck by cannon shells. A tribe of friendly Senussi Arabs found him, dressed his wounds, and helped him return to Allied lines. For this exploit, and his earlier successes, Barr was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), the full citation being published in the London Gazette on 20 February 1942:

This officer, who commenced operational flying in November, 1941, has displayed the greatest keenness and skill as a fighter pilot. In December, 1941, during a patrol over the Derna area, he shot down a Messerschmitt 110; the next day, in the same area, he destroyed a Messerschmitt 110 and a Junkers 88. One day in January, 1942, his squadron formed part of an escort to bomber aircraft operating over El Agheila. Enemy aircraft were encountered and, in the ensuing engagement, Flying Officer Barr attacked 2 Italian fighters, one of which he shot down. He then observed one of his fellow pilots, who had been shot down, waving to him from the ground but, when preparing to make a landing in an attempt to rescue him, Flying Officer Barr was attacked by 2 Messerschmitt 109s. Although the undercarriage of his aircraft was not fully retracted, he immediately manoeuvred to engage the attackers, only to find that his guns had jammed. Quickly rectifying the fault he delivered an accurate burst of fire which caused one of the Messerschmitts to disintegrate in the air. A further 2 enemy aircraft joined in the combat and Flying Officer Barr was wounded and forced down. While on the ground he was further wounded by the enemy's fire but, despite this, he made his way through the enemy's lines and rejoined our own forces some 3 days later. He brought back much valuable information regarding the disposition of enemy tanks and defences. Flying Officer Barr displayed the greatest courage and tenacity throughout. He has destroyed 8 enemy aircraft.

On 25 May 1942, Barr had to land in the desert when his engine overheated. Having just taken off the engine cowling, he spotted enemy tanks approaching and immediately took off with the engine exposed to the elements, safely landing back at base. He was shot down for the second time on 30 May, when he engaged eight Bf 109s and destroyed one before being hit and forced to crash land at high speed in no-man's land. He came down in a minefield during a fierce tank battle, and was forced to remain where he was as troops of both sides slowly converged on him; British forces managed to reach him first and, after treatment for wounds, he again returned to his squadron. On 26 June, however, after being attacked by two Bf 109s and bailing out of his burning Kittyhawk, he was captured by Italian soldiers and taken as a prisoner-of-war, first to Tobruk, and then to Italy, where he received hospital treatment for serious wounds. He later learned that the pilot who shot him down was Oberleutnant Werner Schroer, a Luftwaffe ace credited with sixty-one victories in North Africa. Bobby Gibbes, having recovered from his own injuries, again took command of No. 3 Squadron. During his incarceration, on 5 February 1943, Barr was awarded a Bar to his DFC for "Destroying further enemy aircraft".

Barr tried to escape from his confinement four times. By November 1942 he had recovered sufficiently from the injuries he received in June to break out of the hospital where he was being held in Bergamo, northern Italy. He made his way to the Swiss border but was challenged by an Italian customs official, whom he struck with a rock before being recaptured. Court-martialled on a charge of murder, Barr only avoided a death sentence when the Swiss Red Cross colonel representing him located the official and proved that he had not died; Barr was instead sentenced to ninety days solitary confinement in Gavi Prison Camp, Genoa. In August 1943, with Italy on the verge of surrender, prisoners of war were rounded up for transport to Germany. Barr jumped from a moving train bound for the Brenner Pass and joined a group of Italian partisans in Pontremoli, remaining at large for two months before again being captured. Taken to a transit camp just over the Austrian border, Barr and fourteen other prisoners escaped by tunnelling under the barbed wire. Eventually he managed to link up with an Allied special operations unit, which was gathering intelligence behind enemy lines, sabotaging Axis infrastructure, and helping Allied prisoners and Italian refugees escape over the Apennine Mountains along the so-called "Alpine Route". Barr was recaptured and escaped once more before finally making it through the Alpine crossing himself, leading a group of more than twenty. After reaching friendly lines in March 1944, he was sent to a military hospital in Vasto, weighing only 55 kilograms (120 lb) and in poor health, suffering malaria, malnutrition, and blood poisoning. The assistance he rendered to fellow Allied fugitives earned him the Military Cross (MC) for "Exceptional courage in organising escapes"; the award was gazetted on 1 December 1944. He is thought to be one of only five or six RAAF pilots to receive the MC during World War II.

Posted to Britain in April 1944, Barr went ashore at Omaha Beach two days after D-Day as part of an air support control unit. During the campaign in Normandy, he flew rocket-armed Hawker Typhoons on operations against V-1 flying bomb launch sites. After his return to Australia on 11 September, he was promoted to acting wing commander and appointed chief instructor at No. 2 Operational Training Unit in Mildura, Victoria, taking over from Bobby Gibbes. He also went to New Guinea and flew some ground attack missions in the Kittyhawk to gain experience in the South West Pacific theatre. Following the end of hostilities in August 1945, Barr was treated for recurring fever and underwent two operations on his limbs in No. 6 RAAF Hospital, Heidelberg. He was discharged from the Air Force on 8 October.