By Mikayla van Loon
In 100 years of life, Eddie Ham has travelled from country Victoria to fighting from the air in World War II and back again, fallen in love twice and had four beautiful children.
Born 6 May 1925, Mr Ham celebrated his 100th birthday on Tuesday.
Growing up on a farm about 10 miles west of Rochester and attending high school in Echuca, Mr Ham remembers as far back as 1928 when his father bought his first car, something Mr Ham would learn to drive at just 13-years-old.
By the time he was 18, Mr Ham had joined the Air Training Corp as the war in Europe intensified and it was gaining momentum closer to home shores.
Starting at the Royal Australia Air Force training camp in Somers and then headed to Mount Gambier to carry out the remainder of his training.
Mr Ham finished 13th out 33 in his cohort, graduating from Leading Aircraftman to Officer in 1944.
“I was the youngest one. At the end of 19 September 1944, it was about a year and three months, I had the equivalent of three university degrees, in navigation, meteorology, photography and Mathematics,” Mr Ham said.
Carrying out the remainder of his training in Newcastle, Mr Ham became a navigator in 22 Squadron alongside his pilot Dick Scott.
“He was about five months older than me, he was born in January of 1925,” Mr Ham said.
The pair flew in a Beaufighter, while others flew in Bostons, but “soon, we were in the action against the Japanese”.
Mr Ham was based at Morotai in what was then the Dutch East Indies and the years of the war were spent fighting and escaping death, navigating unknown territories and waters.
“We were raiding a lot of Japanese forts still holding out in various parts of the Dutch East Indies,” he said.
Eventually, Mr Ham said the Squadron moved from Morotai to a place called Sanga Sanga in the Philippines just off the north west corner of Borneo ready to join the allied invasion.
But the Japanese were crafty in their attack and sought to dismantle the strength of the airforce by tampering with the aircraft.
“Would you believe they didn’t have proper guards on the airfield, and the Japanese actually were able somehow to get inside the airfield and tamper with the aircraft.
“And that happened two or three times, and we were taking off over the sea or land and what would happen, was you’d be taking off and you might get off, or the engine might fail.
“If you’d taken off over land, you were dead because if you crashed on land, you had a full tank of fuel, you had bombs and ammunition onboard, you had no hope of stopping anything.”
On 10 June, the date of the allied invasion, Mr Ham and his pilot, Mr Scott, were preparing for flight.
“We were to take off over the sea, one of the aircraft already crashed taking off the other way but luckily, the engine failed before they got off the ground. It was on fire but the pilot and the navigator got out before it blew up,” he said.
“We got into the air and I think my pilot knew that he was going to be in trouble. He said to me a few times, ‘let’s get it over with’.
“The engine failed. There was a reef around the island and it wasn’t so deep there. We crashed inside the reef. It was a violent crash. I couldn’t see anything on the ground until I woke up after I got knocked out.”
Mr Ham suffered from the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae being crushed from the impact and a few abrasions on his arms.
Sadly, Mr Scott didn’t survive. He died at the age of 20.
Mr Scott diverted the aircraft away from the nearby island, avoiding crashing into people and residences there, hitting the water at an estimated 140 knots.
“I was picked up by an American PT boat and taken to the hospital,” Mr Ham said.
“There was no plane and no pilot so I transferred to 34 Squadron, which exists today and as far as I know, I’m the only survivor of both squadrons now.”
Noting his service as “necessary” Mr Ham said there were so many times when he “shouldn’t have come back” and “at least twice I should have died”.
Mr Ham served as part of 34 Squadron until the end of the war, helping transport cargo, men and supplies across the pacific.
He was tasked at the end of the war by General Gallagher to bring prisoners of war being held in Singapore back to Australia.
It was during this time Mr Ham met Lord Louis Mountbatten and Lady Edwina Mountbatten who were organising the repatriation of the Royal Air Force.
When it came time to come back home, Mr Ham had to navigate the mountains of New Guinea, a treacherous task, flying at height capacity for the aircraft.
“If you didn’t have a big load on, you could fly high. Anyway, when we went across, I made sure we were flying as high as we could go, flying at 22,000 feet, with no oxygen, freezing cold.
“(One aircraft didn’t make it) and years later, they found this aircraft, the alpha metre was stopped at 17,388 feet. So the mountain that was supposed to be 15,000 feet or something like was at least 17,388 feet.”
Making it home in 1946, Mr Ham was discharged from the airforce and found a position at the National Australia Bank as a senior general clerk at local branches from Kew to Healesville and eventually ended up in head office.
He married Daphne in 1951 and went on to have four sons, Christopher, Darryl, Calvin and Lindsay who all built incredible careers for themselves, something Mr Ham speaks highly of.
Spending over 40 great years together, Mr Ham’s first marriage came to an end in the 1990s but love was found again.
At the ages of 72 and 71, Mr Ham married Phyllis at the Church of England in the Dandenong Ranges. They joined the Dandenong Ranges RSL together.
The pair moved to Donwood Aged Care in Croydon in 2015 but sadly Phyllis died not long after the move.
Mr Ham remains actively engaged in politics and finance, writing research papers and noting down thoughts, keeping his mind strong.
The 100-year-old celebrated his birthday with friends, family and members of the RSL.
