Norm - Bomber Command

The touching, true story of the first Australian RAAF airman to fly a Lancaster Bomber in World War II.

As a fifteen-year-old boy growing up in Sydney, Francis Norman 'Norm' Crouch knew he wanted to be a pilot after he saw his first airplane-a low-flying Tiger Moth Biplane. He was so transfixed he crashed his bike into a nearby thicket. It was a fascination which led him to become a trainee pilot in the RAAF where he became notorious for his low-flying antics.

Part of an early group of Australian airmen who went to Canada with the Empire Air Training Scheme, Norm survived the perilous Atlantic crossing to Scotland. He was then sent to Coningsby, England in 1941 to join Squadron 97- one of the many RAF squadrons in the legendary 'Bomber Command'-where he became the first Australian to fly a Lancaster bomber in air raids over Germany.