page_title: Frank Lukis
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Frank Lukis / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: AWM caption: "1940-09-04. Left to right&#160;: Group Captain W. Garing, D.F.C. Air Commodore F.W.F. Lukis, O.B.E. Group Captain A.H. Cobby, D.S.O., D.F.C. and two bars Lukis is retiring from A.O.C., N.E.A., Cobby is succeeding him. Cobby is famous for having shot down 33 enemy planes and 13 balloons in the last war. Townsville. (Negative by Anderson)."N.B. Given date is incorrect according to Australia in the War of 1939–1945: Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, p.588 which states that Lukis handed over to Cobby on 25 August 1942.
context_page_description: Air Commodore Francis William Fellowes Lukis, CBE was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. A veteran of World War I, he first saw combat as a soldier in the Australian Imperial Force at Gallipoli. In 1917, Lukis transferred to the Australian Flying Corps and flew with No. 1 Squadron in the Middle East, where he was twice mentioned in despatches. A member of the Australian Air Corps following the war, he transferred to the fledgling RAAF in 1921, and became the first commanding officer of the newly re-formed No. 3 Squadron at RAAF Station Richmond, New South Wales, in 1925.
  Lukis went on to lead No. 1 Squadron in the early 1930s, and was promoted to group captain in 1938. Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire the same year, he was in charge of RAAF Station Laverton, Victoria, during the early years of World War II. He later held forward commands in the South West Pacific theatre, including Northern Area, for which he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and No. 9 Operational Group. Lukis also served on the Air Board, the RAAF's controlling body, as Air Member for Personnel.
context_section_description: The CO of RAAF Station Laverton from December 1939, Lukis was made acting air commodore and posted to Townsville, Queensland, on 8 May 1941 as the inaugural Air Officer Commanding Northern Area. Described by Major General Lewis H. Brereton, commander of the US Far East Air Force, as "a dark, husky, energetic man with a keen sense of humour" who was very much "alive to the situation", Lukis was in charge of air defence for the north coast of Australia. His task was complicated by the poor standard and quantity of available equipment, with only CAC Wirraways as fighters. In January 1942, Northern Area was split into North-Western Area and North-Eastern Area, Lukis remaining in charge of the latter as a temporary air commodore. The following month, he warned higher command of the poor state of preparedness and low morale of Australian Army troops at Port Moresby, New Guinea, due to lack of air cover and apparent lack of interest from government echelons. In March, seventeen P-40 Kittyhawks of No. 75 Squadron, newly formed under North-Eastern Area Command, were deployed; the unit would shortly distinguish itself in the Battle of Port Moresby.
  By the end of April 1942, Lukis' forces consisted of three squadrons (general purpose, transport, and fighter) at Townsville, one general purpose squadron at RAAF Station Amberley in southern Queensland, and four squadrons (three general purpose and one fighter) at Port Moresby. Posted to RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne, as Air Member for Personnel, he handed over command of North-Eastern Area to Group Captain (later Air Commodore) Harry Cobby on 25 August. On 23 March 1943, Lukis was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for the "courage, enterprise and devotion" that he had displayed at North-Eastern Area. As Air Member for Personnel, he occupied a seat on the Air Board, the RAAF's controlling body that was chaired by the Chief of the Air Staff. In this position he clashed with Group Officer Clare Stevenson, Director of the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force, over plans to reduce the number of female officers in technical roles. Stevenson was forced to apologise to Lukis for going over his head to the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff to voice her opposition to the scheme; nevertheless, cuts to these positions did not eventuate.
  In November 1943, Lukis took over No. 9 Operational Group (No. 9 OG), the RAAF's main mobile formation in the Pacific at the time, after its commander, Air Commodore Joe Hewitt, was sacked by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal George Jones, over allegations of poor discipline and morale. The change in leadership dismayed the US-led South West Pacific Area Command, whose senior air officers, Lieutenant General George Kenney and Major General Ennis Whitehead, did not hold Lukis in the same high regard that they did his predecessor. For the next two months, No. 9 OG supported the Allied invasion of New Britain. On 17 January 1944, Lukis mounted an operation with a force of seventy-three aircraft comprising Bristol Beaufort light bombers and Kittyhawk and Spitfire fighters, which was the largest strike undertaken by the Australians to that date. However it encountered no opposition, and Lukis voiced his concerns to Whitehead that the "mopping up" role he had been assigned was costing his fighter pilots the opportunity to engage in air-to-air combat.
  As the Pacific conflict shifted further north, No. 9 OG's operational tasking lessened and it became colloquially known in the RAAF as the "Non-Ops Group". When ordered to transfer one of his fighter wings, No. 73, to the Admiralty Islands for convoy escort in late February, Lukis complained directly to Kenney that it was a waste of resources, but was over-ruled. The rest of No. 9 OG became a garrison force in New Guinea, and was renamed Northern Command on 11 April 1944 to better reflect this new status; its original mobile strike role was taken over by No. 10 Operational Group (later the Australian First Tactical Air Force). Lukis was again considered for the position of Air Member for Perso
caption: Air Commodore Lukis (centre) hands over North-Eastern Area Command to Group Captain Harry Cobby (right) in August 1942
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