Bahamas four shillings note : Flight Sergeant BW McCallum, 224 Squadron, RAF

Green, watermarked four shilling note issued by The Bahamas Government under the Currency Act 1936. Obverse depicts a sailing ship at left and a portrait of King George VI at right. Serial number A/4 597802 in red adjacent to both images.

Relating to the Second World War service of 64618 Flight Sergeant Bruce William McCallum, born Leichhardt, NSW on 18 March 1924. McCallum enlisted at Sydney soon after his 18th birthday on 12 May 1942 and after receiving basic training in Australian, embarked for Canada aboard the 'Mariposa' on 4 November 1943 to receive advanced training in communications (Winnipeg) and gunnery (Lethbridge). McCallum was then sent to Nassau, Bahamas to study radar - GEE and LORAN. These early radar systems were installed in Liberators (in which McCallum would fly operationally as a navigator) from late 1943 (GEE) and August 1944 (LORAN). He spent three months learning to distnguish 'fish noises from ship's propellors' and recalls life in Nassau as akin to 'living in boiling water', such was the heat and humidity. With radar training complete, McCallum joined a Liberator crew on exercises in the Gulf of Mexico, practising depth-charging a drouge being towed by an American destroyer. He recalls that his inexperienced skipper made the mistake of attacking the drogue lengthwise (as opposed to a right angle attack), an error compounded by the electric bomb release mechanism failing. McCallum had to release the depth charge manually, by which time the Liberator was rapidly approaching the rear of the destroyer. The blast 'lifted the rear end of the destroyer out of the water. When we asked if we could have another try they told us they would shoot us out of the air if we came back.' His training complete, Flight Sergeant Bruce McCallum was posted to 224 (Liberator) Squadron, RAF, a Coastal Command unit then based at Mill Town, Scotland which by 1944 was concentrating on hunting German U-boats and shipping off the Norweigian and Danish coasts. He was involved in the capture of a U-boat late in his tour, but mainly recalls long, dull hours flying fruitless pattern searches. McCallum returned to Australia upon the cessation of hostilities with Germany and was discharged from the RAAF on 21 September 1945.