Sixty-four years after ditching his navy Fairey 'Firefly' anti-submarine aircraft into Jervis Bay after a mid-air collision that killed two of his comrades, 84-year-old David Eagles has made an emotional return to the Shoalhaven.
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At just 20 years of age, the then Sub Lieutenant, was on loan from the Royal Navy, along with fellow pilots Sub Lieutenants, Arthur Arundel and Ian O'Gilvey.
At 3.18pm on November 27, 1956 Eagles and Arundel with trainee navigators, midshipmen Don Debus and Noel Fogarty, were returning to HMAS Albatross after navigational exercises off Jervis Bay when their Fireflies, from 851 Squadron, collided at about 2000 feet altitude, two miles east of Huskisson.
Arundel and Fogarty, who were also both just aged 20, were killed.
Their aircraft WD887, broke apart upon striking the water at around 250 knots, near the crash site.
Despite extensive searches at the time, their bodies or the aircraft were never recovered.
Eagles struggled to maintain control of his aircraft, VX381, after seven feet of the starboard wing, including the aileron, sheared off by the collision.
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Eagles and Debus (18) ditched in Hare Bay, off Callala Bay about three miles from the crash site, launching their life-rafts before the aircraft sank.
Rescue crews were scrambled from both Albatross and HMAS Creswell, with Eagles and Debus rescued by a Sycamore helicopter at 3.15pm and returned to the Naval Air Station.
It's 64 years since I've been back here. Obviously I haven't been to the spot where Arthur and Noel were killed before; or back to where as Greg describes it, we 'parked' the other one.
- Royal Navy pilot David Eagles
Their aircraft sunk in about 15 metres of water, and went largely undiscovered until 1983 when it was rediscovered by local diver Charlie Pickering, since becoming a popular dive location.
Last Sunday (March 8) Eagles and his wife Ann, along with close friends Michael and Marie Murray, from New Zealand, ventured onto Jervis Bay to visit both the crash location where Arundel and Fogarty lost their lives and to the location where he had "parked" his Firefly.
The trip was organised by well-known local diver Greg Stubbs, who after diving on the Firefly wreckage off Callala in 2005, started a quest to find out how the aircraft came to be on the ocean floor.
After researching the crash, Stubbs learnt of the wreck's story and even managed to track down Eagles in the UK and Debus in Canberra.
He became great mates with Eagles, who describes the North Nowra man as "his adopted Australian son".
After 10 years of painstaking searching, Stubbs found the other crash site in 2016, recovering debris which identified it as the right plane.
He was also the driving force behind having a permanent memorial placed on the Firefly in Hare Bay to mark the event's 60th anniversary and tell its story and that of Arthur Arundel and Noel Fogarty and organised a commemorative service.
A service four years ago that David got to be part of, watching a Facebook live feed by the South Coast Register in the UK.
A small but select group, including the former Commander of the Fleet Air Arm Commodore Chris Smallhorn and the retired head curator of the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Terry Hetherington gathered onboard Jervis Bay Wild's vessel Port Venture on Sunday to make the emotional journey to both sites.
I'm an emotional person inside. Hopefully I don't show it but this cut to the spot.
- Royal Navy pilot David Eagles
"It's 64 years since I've been back here," Mr Eagles, who went on to have an incredible career in the British Navy, was a test pilot of the Tornado Jet Fighter and worked with the British Aerospace Program, said.
In a quiet personal moment over the crash site where Arundel and Fogarty perished, Mr Eagles paused for a moment's remembrance.
He was seen to throw something into the water, later revealed to be his service medal.
"The day has been tremendous - I'm not a great one for enormous celebration and this isn't a celebration but it's a very important commemorative day," he said.
"When I told Greg we were coming to the Southern Hemisphere, and probably for the last time, he insisted we come to Nowra.
"This really wasn't a priority, we had other things to do but Greg is irrepressible and he insisted and I've got to say it couldn't have been a more memorable day for me.
"Obviously I haven't been to the spot where Arthur and Noel were killed before; or back to where as Greg describes it, we "parked" the other one.
"This has been very important for me."
The two years spent in Nowra were very important in my aviation career. They were lovely days.
- Royal Navy pilot David Eagles
He admitted it was an emotional day.
"I'm an emotional person inside," he said. "Hopefully I don't show it but this cut to the spot."
He said the two years he spent in Nowra were very important in his aviation career.
"They were lovely days and were important in my overall career," he said.
Although when he first arrived, he wasn't too keen to be flying "aeroplanes the Royal Navy had thrown away" the "big pistons which the Australians were still using".
"I was quite cross when I arrived here and was told we were going to fly Fireflies - how wrong I was," he said.
"The experience you got from those great, enormous Griffin powered Fireflies was invaluable and no doubt it helped me in my eventual career."
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He relived the accident saying the "day was cloud-free and blue sky, which was about 90 per cent of the Nowra flying - blue sky".
"We had gone out over the heads and done an exercise of navigation for the midshipmen and when we formed up here, had this mid-air - suddenly I couldn't tell you if it was day or night," he said.
"I just became aware of things to do - I couldn't have recognised the spot we put her down.
"It was flat and calm so I was pleased about that.
"We had to descend and increase speed up to 150-160 knots to keep it from rolling and we just put it down. As we slowed, the thing rolled and skewed - it wasn't a very pretty landing!"
Remarkably he sounds so calm about it all. Even more incredible he was just 20-years-old.
"It's amazing Greg was able to discover both sites," he said.
"I wouldn't have been to get you to the nearest mile if I told you.
"It's wonderful for Greg to have arranged this."
The spot where David and Don were eventually rescued, the nearest point to "their landing" off Callala Bay was also pointed out.
"I remember we got to a little creek," he said.
"There were freshwater oysters on the rocks of the creek entry.
"It [the landscape] was very bare at the time - there were no houses there like today, it was just bush."
The visit concluded with a trip to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at HMAS Albatross, where David proudly posed alongside a Firefly which is part of the museum's collection.
For Mr Stubbs, the event brought closure to a chapter in his life.
"I've been very lucky to meet an incredible man in David Eagles," he said.
It was very emotional to see him walk down the gangway to say his peace with Arthur. And when we got over his crash site, a man who has seen lots of things in life, things I'll never experience, shed a tear, I knew I had achieved what I needed to achieve. A proud moment and great to be able to do something small but special for a very special man.
- North Nowra's Greg Stubbs
"I feel proud from an Australian point of view I've been able to fulfill an 84-year-old man's obligation to his mate.
"It was very emotional to see him walk down the gangway to say his peace with Arthur. And when we got over his crash site, a man who has seen lots of things in life, things I'll never experience, shed a tear, I knew I had achieved what I needed to achieve.
"A proud moment and great to be able to do something small but special for a very special man.
"It all probably hasn't sunk in yet what we've done.
"I just knew in September last year when David told me they were coming to Australia I just had to make this happen.
"A proud moment. It's right up there with what we did in 2016 when we marked the 60th anniversary of the crash."