10 Operational Group (later the Australian First Tactical Air Force), and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in September 1944 for his actions during the assaults on Aitape and Noemfoor in New Guinea.

This carried on into the early part of his military career and beyond; as late as 1941, the author of an anonymous letter from RAAF Station Wagga to Prime Minister Robert Menzies stated that his "blood ran cold" at the notion of someone called "Scherger" commanding trainee Australian pilots.

[10][11] He was one of the Air Force's first volunteers for parachute instruction, under the tutelage of Flying Officer Ellis Wackett at RAAF Station Richmond, New South Wales, and made the first public freefall descent in Australia, at Essendon, Victoria on 21 August 1926.

After doing so, Scherger illegally flew his S.E.5 fighter between ship and wharf before heading back to Point Cook, only to be hauled into Cole's office the next morning to find the CO brandishing a photograph taken by a member of the public, catching the young pilot in the act.

As one of the leading pilots of the Bulldog, then regarded as the peak of military technology, and in what was generally thought of as the RAAF's elite formation, he gained popular exposure that may have helped his later rise to senior leadership.

As directed by the Federal government, he was responsible for training the Treasurer, Richard Casey, to fly; the use of Air Force facilities for his own benefit by an elected official led to adverse publicity when it was revealed by the media.

Described by Major General Lewis H. Brereton, commander of the US Far East Air Force, as "energetic, efficient and very impatient", Scherger started improving the operational readiness of the base and its surrounds without waiting for specific orders from RAAF Headquarters.

[5][33] Driving into town to meet Air Marshal Richard Williams, who was in transit on his way to England, Scherger first became aware of the assault after he heard anti-aircraft fire and counted twenty-seven enemy aircraft in the distance.

[34] In a lull after the initial attack that day, he made contact with Williams before the two men were forced to take shelter in a makeshift trench that was straddled by falling bombs as a second raid got under way.

As well as the loss of civil and military infrastructure, twenty-three aircraft and ten ships, and the death of some 250 people, 278 RAAF personnel had deserted Darwin in an exodus that became known as the "Adelaide River Stakes".

[38] Praised for his "great courage and energy", he was one of the few senior Air Force officers in the region to emerge from Commissioner Charles Lowe's inquiry into the debacle with his long-term career prospects undamaged.

78 Wing's first mission that same month, he had to deal with several organisational problems to bring all his squadrons to combat readiness, including lack of training in tropical conditions, and shortcomings in aircraft maintenance and staff rotation that resulted in the RAAF's operational rate of effort being inferior to similar USAAF formations.

1 TAF's airfield construction teams had been tasked with opening the runway on Tarakan Island within a week of Allied landings but extensive pre-invasion damage and adverse environmental conditions delayed this until the end of June.

[59] In October 1945, Scherger led a survey team to Japan to review airfields and other facilities being considered for the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, determining that substantial work was needed to bring them up to the required capacity.

[69] Scherger deliberately sited his headquarters, which had been based in Singapore when he took over, next to the offices of the Director of Operations in Kuala Lumpur, to more closely align air tasking with overall military planning.

He expanded the use of helicopters for troop delivery and casualty evacuation, and presided over a change in tactics that saw an earlier policy of indiscriminate saturation bombing of jungle areas replaced by one of precision strike against enemy camps.

[10] During his term he commissioned a review into the effectiveness of the syllabus at RAAF College for meeting the future needs of the Air Force in an age of missiles and nuclear weaponry.

[81] For a time, Scherger championed the purchase of a force of British-built Vulcan heavy bombers but excessive cost and a governmental determination to remain "under the shelter of the American nuclear umbrella" put paid to the proposal.

[82] Turning to fighters, Scherger succeeded in reversing a publicly announced decision to purchase the F-104 Starfighter as a replacement for the Sabre, in favour of the Dassault Mirage III, a type better suited for Australia's requirements.

[79] He also played a key role in the acquisition of the C-130 Hercules transport in 1958, over the Federal treasury's "bureaucratic hand-wringing"; the type soon proved itself vital to defence force activity in the region, being described as second only to the F-111 as "the most significant aircraft the RAAF has ever operated".

[85] The following year, harking back to his experience in 1942, Scherger proposed a second airfield in the Darwin area, which led eventually to the establishment of RAAF Base Tindal near Katherine.

[88] Scherger became Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), the senior Australian military position at the time, in May 1961, taking over from Vice Admiral Sir Roy Dowling.

Using back-channel sources of information, he satisfied himself that the RAF's pronouncements on the bomber's development were overly optimistic, and later that year began supporting selection of the F-111 as the aircraft best suited to supplant the Canberra.

Openly sceptical about the cease-fire announced by President Sukarno on 25 January 1964, he supported British requests for Australian combat forces in Borneo but was in the short term "overruled by 'political cross-currents'".

[91] Although Australia eventually deployed battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment from March 1965, Scherger's earlier optimistic estimation of the speed and level of his government's readiness to commit troops was said to have confused the British.

[94] At a joint US, Australian and New Zealand conference from 30 March to 1 April 1965, and with instructions only to ascertain America's objectives in the conflict, Scherger indicated that Australia would be prepared to commit a sizeable ground force, of around battalion size.

[113][114] In an address at the Australian War Memorial in 2005, journalist Paul Kelly referred to him as "Australia's most prominent military hawk" at the time, who "exceeded his brief" by promising a battalion to the Americans before a formal request had been made.

[115] Historians Peter Edwards and Gregory Pemberton have written that "no official could have done more to press Australia into a military commitment in Vietnam than its most highly ranked serviceman, Air Chief Marshal Scherger".

[120][121] According to his biographer, Harry Rayner, he bequeathed to his successor as Chairman of COSC, Lieutenant General Sir John Wilton, a position much invigorated and respected by the service chiefs and the government, and contributing to a more cohesive Australian defence organisation.

[123] Detractors accused him of cunning and excessive politicking, Air Marshal Williams declaring that Scherger favoured his friends in the service and later in TAA and CAC, and Prime Minister John Gorton famously calling him "a politician in uniform".