Garfield Finlay

In 1911, he won the Australian breaststroke championship and the international King's Cup of the Royal Life Saving Society in London.

[6] As the campaign came to an end, he was attached to the 7th Light Horse Regiment, and was recommended for a Mention in Despatches for his actions as one of the last 25 men evacuated from the peninsula.

[13] Finlay's aerial victories came during the Allied drive for air superiority over Axis pilots flying for the Ottoman Empire.

In this Allied airmen were so successful that they were virtually without air opposition when they supported Allenby's final smashing drive at the Battle of Megiddo.

[14] On 21 September 1918,[15] as part of the Megiddo action, Garfield Finlay, his pilot Alan Brown, and another air crew discovered that several miles of the road leading out of Balata was crowded with Ottoman transport and troops retreating from Allenby's army.

Constrained by cliffs on one side of the ancient Roman highway and trackless hills on the other, the Turks suffered heavy casualties.

Friendly ground forces sweeping the area later found about 800 horse-drawn wagons abandoned along the road, along with 90 artillery pieces, 50 lorries, and half a dozen automobiles, along with assorted water carts and field kitchens.

[2][16] In his career as an observer, Finlay was credited with eight confirmed aerial victories, before undertaking pilot training late in the war.

In addition, they have rendered most valuable service in attacking enemy cavalry, antiaircraft guns and other ground targets, inflicting heavy loss.

[19] Once released to civilian life in March 1919,[17] Finlay spent ten years in the United States, working in advertising.

[citation needed] He returned to military service at the beginning of the Second World War; a 24 February 1940 news article mentions him serving as the adjutant of a Royal Australian Air Force training depot at Laverton, ranked as a flying officer.