Neither AIF Headquarters in Egypt nor 5th Wing RFC there was aware of our imminent arrival although 5th Wing had advice of the formation of a squadron in Australia which would join his command and be known as No.67 (Australian) Squadron, RFC. There was no more authority for calling us a squadron of the RFC than there was, for example, for calling the 9th Battalion AIF the 23rd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment.
This was what might be called a \"flow-on\" of the wish expressed in London that Dominion personnel should serve in the RFC and it took much correspondence before we were referred to by the RFC in official correspondence (in January 1918) as No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps.
and;
About this time too, we were advised that henceforth we would be known officially as No.1 Squadron Australian Flying Corps - it had taken almost two years to get rid of the RFC No.67 and even this was for some unexplained reason done in two bites, for during 1917 an AIF order stated that we were to be known as No.67 Australian Flying Corps. I cannot imagine who was clever enough to work out a reason for that.
Williams was a century before his time. His core belief was that Australian solutions to Australian issues were superior. No wonder it was the great anglophile, Robert Menzies, that kicked him out when Williams\' beliefs were needed the most in WWII. Instead we got a British hack running the RAAF and the EATS diverting pilots to Europe. Curtin was just as bad as Menzies was too.
cam
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