SHAW, Harry Turner (1889-1973)
Harry Turner Shaw was born on 10 January 1889, the son of Thomas Turner Shaw and Agnes May nee Hopkins.
He was educated privately before attending Geelong College from 1903 until 1906, and then Melbourne Technical College. His address at the time of his enrolment was Wooriwyrite Station, Camperdown.
He married Violet Laura Willis, daughter of Herbert and Alice Willis, of Koolomurt.
He was in England at the outbreak of World War I serving in the North Lancashire Regiment, from where he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).
Neil Follett, wrote of Shaw's service:
'He travelled to England in May 1913. After the outbreak of World War One, he missed the first intake of the Royal Flying Corps, enlisting as a dispatch rider with the Royal Engineers on 19 September 1914. Sometime in 1915 he transferred to the RFC and trained as a pilot at Shoreham, Kent. He soloed on a Maurice Farman Longhorn on 13 December 1915 and two days later received his FAI licence (No 2196), before going to Gosport on 1 February 1916.
Posted in June to 'B' Flight of No 8 Squadron RFC in France, he joined at the opening of the Gommecourt offensive with about twenty hours in his logbook. His next posting was on 7 January 1917 to No 12 Squadron RFC as a Flight Commander before returning to Home Establishment as an instructor at Doncaster, and then to Catterick with No 14 TS, RFC as 'B' Flight Commander. On 1 January 1918 he was promoted to Major and appointed Commanding Officer of No 47 TS RFC, and by the end of the war was Officer Commanding No 27 Training Wing as Acting Lieutenant Colonel.
The Pegasus reported further:
'He has received the distinction of the 'Mons Star'. This is given only to the men of the first seven divisions who were actually serving in France for that period of the war, including the Retreat from Mons and the Advance of the Marne. He is also entitled to wear the red and three blue chevrons for his length of active service, which dates from the outbreak of the war.'
In 1919, he returned to Australia on the 'SS Nestor', and on 8 January 1920 established the Shaw-Ross Engineering & Aviation Company at Fishermen's Bend. His business partner was H Galsworthy Ross who, with two passengers, was killed in a crash at Port Melbourne on 22 May 1922. The company carried out aerial advertising and photography, and had an agency for Bristol and Farman aircraft. On 27 December 1920 he participated in the first Victorian Aerial Derby, organised by the Larkin-Sopwith Aviation Company, which was held at Ferry Road, Port Melbourne. The same year he imported several Farman Sport aircraft.'
On 25 February 1950 Melbourne's Argus newspaper carried the following Report:
'Pioneer pilot will retrace flight.
The aviator who made the first civil Melbourne Sydney flight in 1922 has never flown in a modern passenger aircraft - until today.
In 1922 Major Harry Turner Shaw piloted a 50-h.p. single-engined Farman aircraft at an average speed of 60 m.p.h., and was awarded the Oswald Watt Memorial Medal for the year's best flight by an Australian. Today he will retrace his pioneer flight (at 180 m.p.h. or more) in an Ansett DC-3, which will take three hours for the trip that once took him four days (‘including engine trouble’). Major Shaw, who is now 61, and lives in Beach Rd., Beaumaris, made his 1922 flight to attend a Sydney air regatta. He took off from an aerodrome ‘opposite the cement works in the Williamstown ferry short road’, and got as far as Moss Vale (NSW) before the engine spluttered. Repairs took two days, but he reached Sydney in the next ‘hop.’ ‘I wasn't even in time for the regatta’, Major Shaw said yesterday, ‘but I stayed in Sydney for two days, and then flew back, spending a night at Tumut. There were no such things as airports on the,route,then’.
Sources: The Argus (Melb) 25 February 1950 P6; ‘Geelong Collegians at the Great War’ compiled by James Affleck. p308 (citing The Pegasus; Shaw Family Papers; Neil Follett).