Vale - Vincent Jerome Hill (DFC & Bar)(AFC)

Advice has been received of the passing of Vincent Jerome Hill on 1st March 2024.    Vincent served as a pilot with 2 Squadron in Vietnam from 17th April 1967 to 30th October 1967.

The following is from Dave Rogers:                     

Last Friday, the RAAF saw the passing of one of the last of a generation of pilots who flew combat missions in three wars, was an accomplished test pilot, highly decorated, and at the time of his passing was six months short of his 100th birthday and the oldest living, retired Air Rank officer in the Air Force.   This bio was adapted from a personal tale he wrote in 2023 written by him called ‘Good Timing’.                                        

In 1943, Vincent Jerome Hill enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force at 19, as a trainee in the Empire Air Training Scheme, an organisation designed to provide aircrew for service during World War 2. His aptitude and knowledge saw him selected for pilot training and he graduated in a little over 18 months. As he succinctly put it, at 20, I was ‘more or less qualified as a dive bomber pilot in charge of an eight-ton aircraft’ yet he didn’t even have a driver’s licence.  

At 21, he was flying Kittyhawk fighters and later Mustangs in Borneo and Japan.       

At the war’s end, he moved to part-time Citizen Air Force, while completing a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of WA. He kept his flying skills alive on weekends flying Mustangs and the new Vampire jets. When the Korean War erupted, the Air Force was short of experienced fighter pilots, so he was among a small cadre who were re-enlisted and as he said, ‘given the generous rank of Flight Lieutenant’ and moved to Korea. He was a Flight Commander in the famed No 77 Squadron flying Meteor jets involved in ground attack missions against the enemy and his leadership skills shone through as most of the pilots were recently graduated young NCOs.                             

Developing tactics and leading large formations day in and day out for nearly a year, saw him decorated with a Distinguished Flying Cross for valour.    

In 1954, he was selected to undergo training at the Empire Test Pilots School at Farnborough in the UK. He graduated top of the course, being awarded the McKenna Trophy, the first Australian to do so. 

He returned to Laverton in Melbourne and was involved in the developmental flight test work on the new Australian designed Avon Sabre. He then completed an exchange tour as a test pilot in Canada.                                                                

He spent seven years in the test pilot world where he was highly respected and subsequently awarded the Air Force Cross.           

This was followed by Staff College and some staff appointments in planning and personnel which he considered ‘the antithesis of flying and command jobs, where you made and were responsible for any decision’.                                            

In the mid 60s, he was selected to command No 6 Squadron, then flying the Canberra bomber at Amberley in Queensland.                                    

After a year or so, the squadron was placed on a cadre basis in preparation for the new F-111 and the crews merged with No 2 Squadron in Malaysia. 

Shortly after, Vin found himself flying the Canberra on operational missions in his third war in Phan Rang, Vietnam. Again, his experience and leadership skill were put to the test as OIC Flying in No 2 Squadron, planning the operations and flying nightly for many months. For his dedication he was later awarded a Bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross.                                       

His last flying appointment in 1970 was to command No 82 Wing for the US training, delivery and operational development of the new F-4E Phantoms, the interim strike capability until the F-111s arrived. His comment on the powerful, supersonic Mach 2 Phantom was that ‘it was exhilarating and brutish to fly, nothing like the bird-like qualities of my earlier favourites’.                                                              

He then completed the US Air War College course in Montgomery Alabama in the deep south, after which he remarked, ‘it was another but not a favourite part of my education!’                         

He returned to Canberra where he was promoted to Air Commodore and filled a number of senior staff appointments before retiring from the Air Force in 1976, after 34 years.                                        

Later he moved to Russell in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand, where he lived until his passing on 1 March 2024.

RIP