Jack Quigley - Gordons Flying Ace was in battle till the end
Gordon District Cricket Club | May 09, 2025
In celebration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2 the following is a story about the Gordon District Cricket Club’s own Flying Ace, Jack Quigley, who later became one of its highest scoring batsman.
While being a late entry to the war, having arrived in the UK in mid 1944, Jack certainly made up for it by making over 50 raids into enemy territory in his single engine aircraft including his last one only two days before the German surrender.
After arriving in the UK following over a year of training in Australia and the USA, his first job was to learn how to fly the RAF designated single engine aircraft for which he was posted in July 1944 to the RAF base at Heston near London. Here he received his instruction on flying the Supermarine Spitfires. Jack recalled the feeling to his family:
I recall the surge of power – a form of a shove in the back and being in the air almost before realising it. Then there seemed so much to do.
This was followed by a month at the No. 3 Tactical Exercise Unit in Aston Down in Gloucestershire, Southwest England; here he received his official Flying Licence as well as further instruction on flying the Hawker Typhoon aircraft. His time there included low level cross country exercises, flying in formation, aerobatics, ground strafing, dive bombing and the delivery of rocket projectiles in 30° and 45° dives.
Jack was ready for action, and he wasn’t going to disappoint his superiors. He was posted to the 263 Squadron on 21 October 1944 which was part of the No. 146 Wing and was stationed at the B70 Deurne RAF base near Antwerp. Jack flew his first mission on 2 November which included dive bombing enemy strongholds near Steenbergen in Holland. This was followed by further missions on the 4th, 6th and 8th of November, this time carrying 500lb bombs under his wings. By this time the Germans were well on retreat from the Normandy invasion and these missions destroyed the last permanent bridge remaining over the Seine, trapping many of the German forces
Soon after on November 11, Jack was to experience his first dangerous event when a tyre on his Typhoon burst while preparing to take off which caused a chain reaction of exploding one of his bombs and colliding with a bulldozer on the side of the runway killing the driver. Jack initially was knocked unconscious and on reviving looked behind him to see the fuselage behind the cockpit and the left wing all missing and pieces strewn along the side of the runway. While obviously shaken he didn’t receive any medical attention and was sent on another mission later the same day. The war wasn’t going to wait.
Jack’s next targets were isolated garrisons around Arnhem and Nijmegen. He took part in an attack on a German factory at Utrecht which made ‘human torpedos’, small submersibles manned by two crewmen in diving suits; the warhead of the torpedo was used as a limpet mine, attached to a ship and set to explode by a fuse. Jack also was part of an attempted attack on the Gestapo HQ at Amsterdam on 19 November, but this second attack was stopped by the weather. Jack and the squadron returned to the same target on 26 November 1944, this time with more success, with some bombs going through the front door of the building.
The next three months were the busiest time of the war for Jack with the squadron enlisted to support the advancing Allied army on the ground. Later in November, he was hit by flak for the first time damaging the tailplane and also dropped 1000 lb bombs over bridge locations in Germany. In early December Jack flew in a mission to destroy one of the German V-2 SRBM ballistic missile facilities which fortunately were never operationally used.
On 1 January 1945, the Luftwaffe launched ’Operation Bodenplatte’, an attempt to crush the Allied air forces in the Low Countries. There was such intense secrecy about the plan that the British intelligence, although noting the increase in German troops in the area, had no idea that an attack was looming. Fortunately, the squadron was largely unaffected by this operation; only three of the Wing's aircraft were damaged, all destroyed aircraft were replaced within a week and no one was injured.
Fortunately for Jack he was at his accommodation base near the Antwerp airfield when the Germans attacked the airfield. It didn’t stop Jack and his squadron who took off on a mission the same day to destroy an observation post used by the Germans in Hedel in the Dutch province of Gelderland.
On 14 February 1945, Jack and his squadron arrived at a new base called B89 near the village of Mill in Holland. The combat missions continued in earnest with the pilots flying two to three times a day to provide close support for the Allied forces. On one occasion Jack and the squadron twice attacked the town of Asperden near Goch in the Northern Rhine area of Germany, just ahead of their own troops. As a result, 170 German soldiers surrendered that evening unable to continue to take the consistent bombing. During these missions Jack’s aircraft was hit by flak on several occasions with one creating a huge hole in the starboard wing.
By mid-March the number of missions reduced with the support of the forces not as necessary but was replaced with several attacks on German shipping. One of these was the destruction of an ammunition ship just off the island of Terschelling in the Northern Netherlands. Jack’s aircraft was holed in fifteen places with exploding ammunition. Jacks final mission was on 3 May 1945 only two days before the German surrender on 5 May 1945. The Germans didn’t want to see the likes of Jack and his squadron again.
In recognition of his sacrifice and service Jack received the 1939-45 Star, France and Germany Star, Burma Star, Defence Medal and the Returned from Active Service Badge. Jack was successful in helping the No. 46 Wing and No. 263 Squadron to achieve their goals of driving the Germans back from the occupation of France and their eventually surrender in May 1945.
Jack remained in the UK for several months participating in several Victory Parade ‘flyovers’ utilising his well-practiced flying in formation skills thrilling the crowds below. He also often told the story of spending a night ‘out on the town’ with Keith Miller in the middle of one of the Victory Tests and sleeping what was left of the night on the floor of his Waldorf Hotel where the team was staying. He happily recalled that Miller’s bed was untouched the next morning and he met him later that day at the Lord’s ground. He also admitted that staying in London was better than possibly being deployed to New Guinea or Borneo if he was back home. Jack had certainly served his country well and unlike many others somehow survived flying for the RAAF.
While in London Jack was able to catch up with his Gordon teammate Jack Pettiford who had been selected in the Services squad but was not in the team for the Victory Test in London.
Jack embarked from the UK on 18 September 1945 arriving back in Sydney on 17 October 1945 and was formally discharged on 6th December 1945, just in time to get in some cricket before the end of the 1945/46 season. He played Second and First Grade as reported in the Annual Report.
Annual Report 1945-46 – Second Grade
J. Quigley, returning from England after the season started, showed that he still possesses a repertoire of strokes all around the wicket; his 123 not out against Petersham was a brilliant knock and we look forward to seeing more of them next season.
Jack’s score against Petersham was part of a mammoth 253 run first wicket partnership with fellow opener Basil Sheidow who scored 103. The partnership still stands as the highest first wicket partnership in Second Grade and the thirteenth highest for all wickets in all grades. The next two seasons were mixed for Jack scoring 366 and 259 runs respectively with eighteen games in Second Grade and ten in First Grade. In the 1950-51 and 1951-52 seasons he was able to hold his position in First Grade playing thirty consecutive games with a high score of 79 not out. The First Grade report indicated his value.
Annual Report 1951-52 – First Grade
J. Quigley played some useful knocks for his side and scored 445 runs at an average of 31.78. Jack always seemed to make good when needed most.
The pattern of moving between First and Second Grade continued all the way through to his retirement following the 1963-64 season. Although he scored well in Second Grade, he couldn’t nail down his position in the higher grade. His time in Second Grade included two centuries and a double century during this period.
To Jack’s credit, while he continued to work hard at his game, he was playing at the club during a strong period, soon after the war, with two First Grade Premierships. First grade batters included such established players as Jack Potter, Ray Robinson, Sid Carroll, Jack Pettiford, Ginty Lush, Bob Lowing, Jim Winter and Jock Shea. Both Jack and his opening partner Basil Sheidow played either First or Second Grade together for ten seasons from 1946 to 1956.
After the war Jack returned to his job at the Treasury and married Betty Mae Graham in 1950. He then spent a short time in London where he could have signed a five year contract with the NSW Government office. He missed most of the 1949-50 season as well as the 1952 and 1953 seasons when he took up a job with the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority before returning to Sydney to work for Burroughs Limited in 1954. Jack moved to Lismore in 1964 with his wife and four sons to take over the Gollan Hotel.
In his later years Jack developed a condition with his right hip that was traced back to his aircraft accident on the runway in November 1944. To add to this Jack suffered two strokes which placed him in a wheelchair but he still managed to get to watch as many Test matches as he could and with assistance still take overseas trips. Jack died on 19 December 2004, approaching his 83rd birthday.
Jack scored 6,384 runs for the club at an average of 27.68 and sits 17th in the list of run scorers in all grades. While he might have made some ‘useful knocks’ as a Gordon cricketer, he made some very powerful ‘knocks’ as part of the air force which defeated the German Luftwaffe and significantly strengthened the Allies push to win the war.
Interestingly while having flown over 300 hours during training and in combat, he didn’t fly an aircraft again on his return. On asking Jack’s son Warren for a possible reason, he replied:
He never really talked about it much. He was a very humble man but there may have been issues there. Once he stayed with us at Lane Cove and I had picked him up at Chatswood station.
That night I heard him wake after a nightmare and it was a flashback to his role in the war in that he would rocket shipping and train lines and stations. He had awoken with the realisation he was rocketing Chatswood station and there were people there!
Flight Lieutenant John Shellard, a Typhoon pilot with the 263 Squadron wrote the following about Jack Quigley.
Jack joined the 263 Squadron on 27 October 1944 when we were flying Typhoon Fighter/Bombers with 146 Wing of the Second Tactical Air Force and very quickly became ‘one of the boys’ which showed his natural ability to find friendship and be accepted wherever he happened to be. We knew that he was a cricketer of some note and he looked the part as well, being of that build and carriage that seems to tell a story. He never boasted of his days in the game and when hostilities ended, was made Wing Sports Officer and managed to get wickets laid, equipment gathered etc. I think he lived for the game. When I met Jack again, many years later, on some of his many visits to the UK, he did not appear to have changed at all, except physically, and seemed to have borne his disabilities with his usual style of grit and individuality. To me he always seemed a ‘happy man’ (Shellard, 1945)
Jack can certainly be counted as a Gordon ‘Ace’.
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