Lt AE Collett
Tony Collett
- Rank
- Lt
- Squadron
- No 184 Squadron
- 1943 voyage
-
Sailed from Cape Town on the Rangitata in September 1943, and signed the group photograph taken in Montevideo on the way.
The story of the photograph
- Fate
- Killed in action, 27 December 1944
- In the book
- Pages 138
From the book
SAAF Airmen in RAF Squadrons
Despite the presence of German spies in Montevideo, apparently led by their Embassy, the photograph and other images of the group, enjoyed local press coverage the next day. At least one airman, 2nd Lt Tony Collett writing home during that stopover, commented about the scuttled German pocket battleship “Graf Spee” but when the “Moreton Bay” and “Rangitata” sailed out of Montevideo unescorted on the 28th and 29th of September destined for Freetown some 8 700 km away, those remains turned into an uncomfortable reminder that German warships prowled the Atlantic.
SAAF Airmen in RAF Squadrons
Several participated in the BBC Africa shortwave’s weekly programme “Song time in the Laager” broadcast from London. The airmen in the top image from the left, McGregor, Begbie, Howes, Eagar all former King Edwards pupils in Johannesburg sailed on the “Rangitata” with another former pupil all of whom signed the mounting. That photograph and two others including Lt’s IF Watson, Meyer, Higgins and Quick from the Transvaal appeared in an English magazine in May 1944. 2nd Lt Tony Collett and Naval servicemen in the bottom image were from the Eastern Cape.
SAAF Airmen in RAF Squadrons
Of the five seconded SAAF airmen served on No 184 Squadron Collett, Fisher, and Schlebusch are in the squadron photograph. Their names together with Green and Quick are recorded on the adjacent Logbook page
SAAF Airmen in RAF Squadrons
No 184 Squadron Typhoon pilot Lt AE Collett lost his life in a mid-air collision on December 27th, 1944. This page 126 extract from Volume 3 however illustrates the challenge of information integrity which in that author’s words arise from “incomplete or dubiously kept records”.The “west of Ahrndorf “ is non existent, Lt AN Fisher baled out of a flak damaged burning Typhoon became a “POW” while Lt Tony Collett’s mid-air collision involved No 181 Squadron’s Commanding Officer Squadron Leader WHB Short.
SAAF Airmen in RAF Squadrons
The Montevideo photograph of the seconded SAAF airmen tells a story of its own. Twenty-three of those airmen including Begbie, Carby Thompson, Collett, Gale, Higgins, Jennings, Lens, McGregor, Swales and Wright all of whom signed the mounting lost their lives.