 Among a small coterie of wartime RAAF commanders considered suitable for future senior roles , Hancock retained his rank of group captain following the end of hostilities . As Director of Personnel Services during 1946 , he was involved in restructuring the Air Force into a dramatically smaller peacetime service . He recalled this time as a " twilight period " when " no @-@ one wanted to know about us " and many good people were let go due to the government 's parsimonious retention policies . In 1947 , Hancock was promoted to air commodore and appointed inaugural commandant of the newly formed RAAF College , Point Cook , the Air Force 's equivalent of Duntroon and the Royal Australian Naval College . He also drafted the institution 's charter . Departing in late 1949 , he spent the following year in Britain , where he attended the Imperial Defence College . On his return to Australia in 1951 , he was promoted to acting air vice marshal and made Deputy Chief of the Air Staff . He was raised to a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in the 1953 New Years Honours . In October that year , Hancock took over from Air Vice Marshal Frank Bladin as Air Member for Personnel ( AMP ) . As AMP , he occupied a seat on the Air Board , the service 's controlling body that consisted of its most senior officers and which was chaired by the Chief of the Air Staff . Completing his term in January 1955 , Hancock was posted to Britain as Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff in London . He spent much of the latter half of 1955 and early 1956 laid low by a stomach ailment that was initially diagnosed as amoebic dysentery but was later thought to be Malta fever or malaria . 
