User:LankyLang/sandbox

Keith James Stevens, DFM (21 February 1919 – 24 April 2016) was a Royal Australian Air Force Officer and was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Medal which was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the Royal Air Force (United Kingdom) and the other services, and formerly also to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying in active operations against the enemy".

Early Days
Keith was born at Hampton Park on 21 February, 1919. His father, Harry, a builder, had enlisted for the AIF. His father was in the 22nd Battalion and had been severely gassed on the Somme in World War One. Then later was advised to move to the country. Accordingly, Keith’s parents purchased 12 acres in Pound Road where they grew produce for the Dandenong market.

Keith and his older brother, Robert, used to ride horses where the freeway now runs, and they would sell rabbits for sixpence a pair on the corner of Pound and Cranbourne Roads, both of which were gravel in those days.

With the onset of the Depression further schooling was out of the question and in 1933 Keith walked the streets of Melbourne looking for work. He eventually gained a position in a clothing factory. After a few years he resigned to take up a motor mechanic apprenticeship, studying at night at the Working Men’s College (later RMIT). Keith eventually started his own business, leasing premises in South Melbourne from racing car driver Cec. Warren. He serviced the cars in Cec’s “stable”, including a Fraser Nash, a Bugatti (formerly owned by Malcolm Campbell), and the only Invicta in Australia.

In The Army
In 1938, Keith had joined the Militia, 58 Battalion, "I could see there was a war coming. It stuck out a mile and I thought I had to be in something. I’d get called up in something eventually, so I thought I’d join up. I had a high rank there, a lance corporal". Keith was soon called up when war broke out in September, 1939.

"In the infantry. We went up to Trawool. When the war started they took us to Trawool, gave us old uniforms from the First World War. We couldn’t get the creases out of them. They’d been in wool bales and boots from the First World War. We spent three or four months up there in Trawool at odd times and then…well 1939, mainly they called us up at the end of ’39. It must have been October ’39 they called us up."

"Training in the militia was hard work, plenty of route marching and we had a bit of trouble one day. They were checking machine guns and they thought they’d put a dummy bullet in it but they’d put a live one in it. It went straight through one of the fella’s heads.But it was very interesting. It was mainly route marching and fighting bushfires. We fought the bushfires up in Mount Dandenong in ’39, all around Trawool and Goulburn, got lost a few times. We only fought bushfires with a bag and when that got burnt then we had the branch of a tree. It was very difficult, tough, tough life but it was good for us. It kept you fit."

Joining the RAAF
However he decided that he would prefer the Air Force but discovered that, as he was not 21, parental permission was required. This was refused so Keith had to bide his time until 21 (February 1940) when he again visited the Air Force recruiting post. The officer-in-charge greeted him warmly with the reassuring words: “I’ve seen you before; you’re in a hurry to die, aren’t you?”