Leonard Victor (Len) Waters (20 June 1924 – 24 August 1993) was the first Aboriginal Australian military aviator, and the only one to serve as a fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. Aboriginal people at the time suffered significant discrimination and disadvantages in Australian society, such as restrictions on movement, residence, employment, and access to services and citizenship. Born in northern New South Wales and raised in Queensland, Waters was working as a shearer when he joined the RAAF in 1942. Training initially as a mechanic, he volunteered for flying duties and graduated as a sergeant pilot in 1944. He flew P-40 Kittyhawks in the South West Pacific theatre, where he completed 95 missions, mainly close air support. By the end of the war he had risen to the rank of warrant officer. Following his discharge from the RAAF in 1946, he attempted to start a regional airline but was unable to secure financial backing and government approval. He went back to shearing, and died in 1993 at the age of 69. Early life The fourth of 11 children to Donald and Grace Waters (née Bennett), Len Waters was born at Euraba Mission, near Boomi in northern New South Wales on 20 June 1924. He grew up at Nindigully, near St George, Queensland, and was educated to the seventh grade at Nindigully State School. Hearing tales of pioneering aviators Charles Kingsford Smith, Amy Johnson, Bert Hinkler and Charles Lindbergh, and reading stories of Biggles, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers, he had, as he put it, his "head in the clouds" from an early age. Waters left school when he was 14 to support his family, working alongside his father as a ring barker. He was paid 10 shillings per week, for a seven-day week, less than one-sixth of the average wage at the time. In 1939, he began working as a shearer. RAAF career Although the military had officially barred or restricted the recruitment of Aboriginal people in earlier periods, these impediments were significantly relaxed after Japan entered World War II, and Australia came under direct attack for the first time. Waters volunteered for service in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on 24 August 1942, at Brisbane, and was accepted. He began training as an aircraft mechanic, but later volunteered for flying service, and commenced initial training at Somers, Victoria, in December