Len Waters
Australian fighter pilot (1924-1993)
Leonard Victor "Len" Waters (20 June 1924 – 24 August 1993) was the first Aboriginal Australian military aviator, and the only one to serve as a fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. Aboriginal people at the time suffered significant discrimination and disadvantages in Australian society, such as restrictions on movement, residence, employment, and access to services and citizenship. Born in northern New South Wales and raised in Queensland, Waters was working as a shearer when he joined the RAAF in 1942. Training initially as a mechanic, he volunteered for flying duties and graduated as a sergeant pilot in 1944. He flew P-40 Kittyhawks in the South West Pacific theatre, where he completed ninety-five missions, mainly close air support. By the end of the war he had risen to the rank of warrant officer. Following his discharge from the RAAF in 1946, he attempted to start a regional airline but was unable to secure financial backing and government approval. He went back to shearing, and died in 1993 aged sixty-nine.
Early life
Leonard Victor (Len) Waters was born at Euraba Mission, near Boomi in northern New South Wales, on 20 June 1924. He was the fourth child of eleven born to labourer Donald Waters and his wife Grace Vera (née Bennett). They belonged to the Kamilaroi group of Aboriginal Australians, whose traditional lands encompassed southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
The public source identifies “Len Waters” as australian fighter pilot (1924-1993). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Waters, Australian and fighter.
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This entry incorporates text from “Len Waters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.