Air Vice-Marshal William Hopton Anderson, (30 December 1891 – 30 December 1975) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He flew with the Australian Flying Corps in World War I, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Belgian Croix de guerre, and leading Nos. 3 and 7 Squadrons. Anderson commanded the Australian Air Corps during its brief existence in 1920–21, before joining the fledgling RAAF. The service's third most senior officer, he primarily held posts on the Australian Air Board in the inter-war years. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1934, and promoted to air commodore in 1938. When World War II broke out, Anderson was Air Member for Supply. In 1940 he acted as Chief of the Air Staff between the resignation of Air Vice-Marshal Stanley Goble in January and the arrival of Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, RAF, the next month. He led the newly formed Central and Eastern Area Commands between December 1940 and July 1943, briefly returning to the Air Board as Air Member for Organisation and Equipment in 1941–42. Anderson was founding Commandant of the RAAF Staff School from July to November 1943, and held this post again from October 1944 until his retirement in April 1946. Known to his colleagues as "Andy" or "Mucker", he died on his birthday in 1975. Early life and World War I Born on 30 December 1891 in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, William Hopton Anderson was the third son of English-born surveyor Edward Anderson and his wife Florence (née Handfield), a native Victorian. The youth was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, where he joined the cadet corps. He began his professional military career as a Royal Australian (Garrison) Artillery officer in December 1910, before transferring to the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, based at Rabaul in what was then German New Guinea, in March 1915. The following January, Anderson joined the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) as a captain, serving with No. 1 Squadron in Palestine. He was posted to No. 3 Squadron (designated No. 69 Squadron Royal Flying Corps by the British) in August 1917, operating Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 two-seat reconnaissance aircraft on the Western Front. From October 1917, No. 3 Squadron was heavily involved in artillery ranging, activity that left the slow R.E.8s vulnerable to attack by German fighters.