Worrals Down Under

Worrals #8

by W.E. Johns

William Earl Johns was an English First World War pilot, and writer of adventure stories, usually written under the pen name Capt. W. E. best known for creating the fictional air-adventurer Biggles. W. E. Johns was a prolific author and editor. In his 46-year writing career (1922–1968) he wrote over 160 books, including nearly one hundred Biggles books, more than sixty other novels and factual books, and scores of magazine articles and short stories. His first novel, Mossyface, was published in 1922 under the pen name "William Earle". After leaving the RAF, Johns became a newspaper air correspondent, as well as editing and illustrating books about flying. At the request of John Hamilton Ltd, he created the magazine Popular Flying which first appeared in March 1932. It was in the pages of Popular Flying that Biggles first appeared. The first Biggles book, The Camels are Coming (a reference to the Sopwith Camel aeroplane), was published in August 1932 and Johns would continue to write Biggles stories until his death in 1968. At first, the Biggles stories were credited to "William Earle", but later Johns adopted the more familiar "Capt. W. E. Johns". While his apparent final RAF rank of flying officer was equivalent to an army (or RFC) lieutenant, captain is commonly used for the commander of a vessel or aircraft. Johns was also a regular contributor to The Modern Boy magazine in the late 1930s as well as editing (and writing for) both Popular Flying and Flying. From the early 1930s, Johns called for the training of more pilots, for if there were not enough when war came, "training would have to be rushed, and under-trained airmen would die in accidents or in combat against better trained German pilots." He was removed as editor at the beginning of 1939, probably as a direct result of a scathing editorial, strongly opposed to the policy of appeasement and highly critical of several Conservative statesmen of the time. Cockburn, however, feels that the government was concerned about being so "expertly attacked" on the lack of trained pilots by the editor of the most widely read aviation magazines in the world, including readers "in the RAF or connected with flying." Johns' opposition to appeasement is reflected in some of his books. For example, in The Black Peril (1935) the storyline revolves around German preparations for conquest. Even more advanced in his thinking, for that time, was the story Biggles Air Commodore (1937) which alludes to Japanese preparations for conquest of British colonies in the Far East.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1948

About the author

Invariably known as Captain W.E. Johns, William Earl Johns was born in Bengeo, Hertfordshire, England. He was the son of Richard Eastman Johns, a tailor, and Elizabeth Johns (née Earl), the daughter of a master butcher. He had a younger brother, Russell Ernest Johns, who was born on 24 October 1895.

He went to Hertford Grammar School where he was no great scholar but he did develop into a crack shot with a rifle. This fired his early ambition to be a soldier. He also attended evening classes at the local art school.

In the summer of 1907 he was apprenticed to a county municipal surveyor where he remained for four years and then in 1912 he became a sanitary inspector in Swaffham, Norfolk. Soon after taking up this appointment, his father died of tuberculosis at the age of 47.

On 6 October 1914 he married Maude Penelope Hunt (1882–1961), the daughter of the Reverend John Hunt, the vicar at Little Dunham in Norfolk. The couple had one son, William Earl Carmichael Johns, who was born in March 1916.

With war looming he joined the Territorial Army as a Private in the King's Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry), a cavalry regiment. In August 1914 his regiment was mobilised and was in training and on home defence duties until September 1915 when they received embarkation orders for duty overseas.

He fought at Gallipoli and in the Suez Canal area and, after moving to the Machine gun Corps, he took part in the spring offensive in Salonika in April 1917. He contracted malaria and whilst in hospital he put in for a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps and on 26 September 1917, he was given a temporary commission as a Second Lieutenant and posted back to England to learn to fly, which he did at No. 1 School of Aeronautics at Reading, where he was taught by a Captain Ashton.

He was posted to No. 25 Flying Training School at Thetford where he had a charmed existence, once writing off three planes in three days. He moved to Yorkshire and was then posted to France and while on a bombing raid to Mannheim his plane was shot down and he was wounded. Captured by the Germans, he later escaped before being reincarcerated where he remained until the war ended.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting and different setting, which breaks quite a repetitive streak for the Worrals books, as wells as some good characters and a dramatic premise. Unfortunately the book becomes a bit convoluted and frankly uninteresting from about the halfway point, so the book doesn't quite realise it's potential. 3 stars.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worralls and her friend Frecks decide to go to Australia in order to start an airline business but when they arrive they spot a former colleague named Janet from the Women's Auxiliary Air Service and make a beeline for her. Unfortunately they immediately spot that she is down on her luck and ask why that is. Janet is at first not prepared to tell them her tale of woe but pressure from the pair eventually prevails.

It transpires that Janet had decided to come to Australia at the bequest of an aunt who owned a sort of shack in the outback with plenty of land to go with it and on that land there was supposedly an opal outcrop, and a large specimen that her aunt had found proved the fact. But when Janet arrives she discovers from her aunt's aboriginal servant named Charlie that her aunt has recently passed away and that Charlie, had buried her on their land.

This intrigues Worrals and so she decides to investigate to see what is actually going on because in the background, are three rough looking thugs who Charlie is frightened of and Worrals is then suspicious of. To arrive at the shack, Worrals hired an airplane and was determined to use it to scout out the land to see if she could uncover anything significant. But before she begins the three thugs try to frighten her off ... but in true Worrals' fashion she is determined to discover the truth about the whole set up.

Thus her adventures begin and she becomes involved in many dangerous situations, fighting off the three baddies and involving the local, albeit many miles away from her outback shack, to determine what has gone on with the now suspicious death of Janet's aunt.

After many harrowing experiences the threesome eventually uncover the truth and by the time they have done so, the plans to start an air service in Australia is off the list and they return home to undertake something new back n England.

[Glenda Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

More adventures for Worrals and Frecks