Cobram’s John Coldwell never met his uncle Albert Ernest Longoni — but he knows more about him than most of his closest friends and family, even though Albert died in 1943, which was before John was born.
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But Mr Coldwell has been able to meet and come to know his uncle through the many letters Albert wrote while on active duty with the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II.
The last one was written just 11 days before his death.
The family treasure trove, with the remarkable story of one young man’s service, only came to light when Mr Coldwell’s grandmother Ellen Mary Longoni died in the early 1970s.
“When my grandmother passed away, amongst all the boxes and things she left there was a big safety deposit box and it was packed full with the letters from the frontline,” Mr Coldwell said.
“I retired in 2013, moved back to Cobram, and with some time on my hands I started to get interested in family history,”
What turned out to literally be a paper trail has also provided Mr Coldwell with a portal into the past.
Albert’s letters to his mother and family tell the story of an articulate young man a long way from home, in a war zone and risking his life in the sky every day.
Albert started writing from his training base before he had even left Australia and the paper trail continued unbroken until the young pilot was shot down by the Japanese on March 15, 1943.
But to know how Albert died, the story of how he lived must come first.
He was born on March 12, 1919, in Port Pirie, South Australia, to Ellen Mary and Albert Joseph Longoni.
Albert Sr, a Swiss-German engineer who was wildly successful within in his field, migrated to Australia in early 1900s.
Ellen, a Danish native and relative of famed author Hans Christian Andersen, had also come to Australia around the same time.
Growing up in Toorak, from an early age Albert seemed entranced by the thought of flight — and being a pilot.
Attending Camberwell Grammar School alongside pals Athol Snook and David Mosie, the inseparable trio shared countless hours with model planes throughout their schooling years.
“Albert loved aircraft, and spent lots of time building models,” Mr Coldwell said.
This passion was helped enormously by the involvement of his engineer father, who quickly set up a workshop with tools for his son to use.
“My mother tells stories of cutlery going missing because the boys would knock it off, melt it down and make their little engines out of them for their planes.”
Years later, they’d take to the skies in the real thing.
But even before Albert sat at his first set of aeroplane controls he had demonstrated the bravery that would carry him aloft to the deadly skies over the Pacific in wartime.
In Melbourne in 1937 the lightly built 18-year-old university student saw someone try to snatch a handbag from a passing woman.
He did not hesitate to confront the would-be bandit and was instrumental in police being able to arrest the offender.
Sadly, the next stage of Albert’s life did not end as happily.
When war broke out in 1939 Albert was in the enlistment line immediately and, as is the way with the military, he then spend months in training, being moved from base to base along the way.
During all of it he catalogued his new life, his thoughts and his regrets in an endless stream of letters to his parents.
Having pored over the stacks of letters, Mr Coldwell knows so much about the young man that he could almost have been serving there beside him.
“Reading through these letters, they are so descriptive — it is like watching it all on television,” Mr Coldwell said.
“In a way he was more detached from his father, and so when he wrote to his mother it was more about family, more from the heart.
“But as for the letters addressed ‘Dear Dad’, they are much more formal, much more prim and proper. They talk to each other about technical things, father-and-son things.”
After bouncing around various posts including Laverton, Essendon, Tamworth and Forest Hill, Albert was finally given his marching orders and his first combat posting with 31 Squadron in Coomalie Creek, south-east of Darwin, flying Bristol Beaufighters.
“Not long after he got there he took a Beaufighter out for a navigational flight and landed it, but didn’t put it under camo nets,” Mr Coldwell said.
“These Japanese Zeros came through and strafed the airfield — and destroyed his plane.”
Mr Coldwell is convinced Albert's next combat flight was a punishment for the loss of the plane on the ground, because just a fortnight later he was ordered on a combat mission at Jobo in Indonesia — and it would be his final posting.
“They (RAAF headquarters) knew where the Japanese Zeros came from, and I think they held Albert accountable for the damages to that plane near Darwin,” Mr Coldwell said.
“And then, on March 15 in 1943, he lifted his fighter into the air one more time with his plane crashing into the sea after being shot down by the Japanese.”
Though his wartime experiences were detailed via letter, the life and death of Albert was too painful for his family to bear; like so many families of lost servicemen and women, the Longonis simply pushed it into a corner and it was taboo, never again mentioned by his family.
“When he was killed the family was absolutely devastated — his death was never discussed,” Mr Coldwell said.
``Mum knew some snippets of his life.
“I knew he had been posted in Coomalie Creek with the 31 Beaufighter Squadron, so I wrote to the RAAF archive section.
“None of his medals had been claimed, the family just didn’t want to know.”
Albert had been awarded four medals — the 1939-45 Star, Pacific Star, War Medal and Australian Service Medal — which now sit proudly on the wall of Mr Coldwell's home.
Absorbed in the life of a man he only knows through letters, Mr Coldwell has compiled his own archive about Albert. Poems, photos, logbooks and letters have recreated a family story that may otherwise have been lost for all time.
A story about days when the world was plunged into the most horrific war of all time; when invasion of Australia was a stark reality; and when young men, like Albert, stood up to protect everything that was near and dear to them.
Now, Mr Coldwell hopes to uncover even more about an uncle who, in the bleak years of war, was taken too soon.
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