Red Raider, Roy Parker, USAAF

Pilot, Major Roy Parker, 19th Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group, United States Army Air Force (USAAF)

Roy Parker signed up with the USAAF in 1941, age 22.  After the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 by the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service, his journey took him not only to the Pacific, New Guinea and the Philippines, but to a life unimagined in Australia, as American forces entered the Second World War.

North Queensland became the home and jumping off point for Roy's Squadron known as the Red Raiders, flying B-26 Marauders, whose missions included attacking Japanese targets in New Guinea and New Britain, they also supported the movement of Allied troops to and from New Guinea, as well as escorting shipping, carrying vital supplies.

Roy Parker's collection consists principally of images collated in a scrapbook - but it also contains several tokens of his experiences and service. His identity tags, service medals and commemorative watch, piece together just a little of the narrative of his time as a pilot during the Second World War, and his later life in Australia.

American servicemen became familiar sights in the streets of Townsville and Charters Towers, where they were treated to the hospitality of the local communities, holding dances and other social events to occupy their free time, and Roy's photographs reflect these activities.

In 1945 Roy met and married Rosetta Pearl 'Poppy' Andrews, they honeymooned in Katoomba, NSW where he was stationed, after which they travelled to his family home in Brooklyn, New York, where Poppy gave birth to their first daughter Virginia and he finished his war service as a flying instructor in Idaho. Roy and his family returned to Australia in 1947, he studied Civil Engineering at Sydney University and later worked as commercial airline pilot, they had two more children, Peter and Louisa.

A small newspaper clipping in the scrapbook (unsourced) announces when Parker, who was a veteran of 53 missions in the Pacific theatre was promoted to Captain, and that he was awarded the Air Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the American Defense Ribbon, and the Asiatic-Pacific Ribbon with two Battle Stars for the Papuan and New Guinea campaigns. It also tells us that his brother Frank Simpson Parker junior was a First Lieutenant in the Infantry (USAA) serving in France.

One page of the album is dedicated to a handwritten-list of all the locations he visited during his service, starting on the US mainland, followed by Hawaii, China, Fiji, New Caledonia, Queensland (Townsville, Charters Towers, Ipswich, Archerfield, Eagle Farm), New Guinea, Sydney (and Katoomba), Admiralty Islands, Dutch New Guinea, Indonesia, Philippines.

After he retired in 1977, Roy Parker himself a great-grandson of a Civil War veteran, along with members of the American Civil War Research Society sought out the burial places of American Civil War veterans who had migrated to Australia, identifying over 100 gravesites and gaining assistance from the US Department of Veteran Affairs for the placement of headstones, he also took on the position of historian for the American Legion "Yanks Down Under". His work "Civil War Veterans in Australia" was published after his death by daughter Virginia.

Roy Parker's collection is an insight into American airman, serving in North Queensland, enjoying the hospitality of Queenslanders, all the while preparing for and undertaking extraordinary feats of service, to protect Pacific nations and Australia from the threat of invasion or worse. And, who later chose to make a life for himself and his family 'down under'.

Find out more …

View the collection ...

• 33837 Roy Warren Parker collection, State Library of Queensland
  - Collection guide

Read ...

• 22nd Bombardment Group [Wikipedia]
• National Archives of Australia, SP908/1 Item ID 4044647 [Immigration documentation]
• 'Civil War Veterans in Australia' by Roy Parker, edited by Virginia Crocker, 2000 [National Library of Australia]
• Sumter to Appomattox Newsletter no.4 July 2002. Official newsletter of the New South Wales Chapter of The American Civil War Round Table of Australia. [pdf]