The Australia 2021 $$1 Indigenous Warrant Officer Len Waters HEROES Set commemorates the only indigenous Australian pilot during World War 2.In WWII, Len Waters enlisted in the RAAF on 24 August 1942. Training first as a flight mechanic, he was later accepted for pilot training. Posted to 78 Squadron RAAF, he served in the South-West Pacific Area in 1944-45, first at Noemfoor and then Morotai and Tarakan in what is now Indonesia. Flying a Kittyhawk P-40N fighter serendipitously named Black Magic, he made 41 strike missions against fortified Japanese positions, and another 54 operational flights.
Born on a northern New South Wales Aboriginal reserve in 1924, Warrant Officer Len Waters was a Kamilaroi man who defied poverty and discrimination to achieve his ambition to fly. As a child during the Great Depression in outback Queensland, he made model aeroplanes from cast-off packing cases, seeking to emulate the feats of his aviation heroes. In the Second World War, Len Waters enlisted in the RAAF on 24 August 1942. Training first as a flight mechanic, he was later accepted for pilot training. Posted to 78 Squadron RAAF, he served in the South-West Pacific Area in 1944-45, first at Noemfoor and then Morotai and Tarakan in what is now Indonesia. Flying a Kittyhawk P-40N fighter he made 41 strike missions against fortified Japanese positions, and another 54 operational flights. Warrant Officer Waters was the RAAF’s only known Indigenous fighter pilot in the war. Post-war he returned to shearing, frustrated by government silence that greeted his applications for a civil pilot’s licence. When he died in 1993 the RAAF honoured him with a “Missing Man” flyover at his funeral.
Australia 2021 $$1 Indigenous Warrant Officer Len Waters HEROES Set Uncirculated Four Coin Set - mintage is limited to 20,000.
Mintmark
A mintmark is a mark on the original die indicating the location where that coin was struck. For example C is for the city of Canberra which is the location where the coin was struck.
