A Tiger Flew With No. 31 Squadron. Was Richmond Behind It?
At first glance, a snarling tiger painted on the nose of a wartime RAAF Beaufighter belongs to military history, not Richmond history.
Then the words beside it change the picture: “Eat ’Em Alive”.
The aircraft belonged to No. 31 Squadron. A Richmond supporter, John Ernest Klug, sits at the centre of the surviving trail, and the tiger did not simply vanish as a one-aircraft curiosity. It became part of a much larger wartime identity that survived long after the war.
That is where the story becomes dangerous to simplify. It would be easy to join the Richmond phrase, the Richmond supporter and the squadron tiger into one neat origin story. RTSSG found enough to make that possibility serious — but also enough gaps to make certainty matter.
So how much of No. 31 Squadron’s tiger story can actually be traced back to Richmond — and where does the evidence stop?
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