On the 5th June 1926, Robert, Louisanna and Robert Jr. set sail on the S.S. Bendigo bound for Australia. The voyage was troubled by neither serious weather nor Kraken attacks (officially). It would be the first of many Anglo-Austro journeys Robert would make in his lifetime, this first one occuring when he was just three years old.
Robert was visiting relatives when the war broke out, but was too young to join up right away. He enlisted in the RAF in 1942, and it is no coincidence that this was the same year in which the fortunes of the Allies began to turn. He attended navigator training school in Canada. Upon returning to England he was posted to 613 Squadron flying Mosquitoes. His squadron mainly bombed railway lines and also participated in the bombing runs ahead of the D-Day Landings at Normandy in June 1944. Robert always said that he liked being in the Airforce because at the end of each mission you came home to a hot meal and clean sheets.
Flight Lieutenant Redhead received the 1939/45 Star, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal and the War Medal 1939-45. Despite the war ending in 1945, Robert had to remain in France flying as part of the British Forces of Occupation. One of his prized possessions from the war was a piece of Royal Copenhagen porcelain given to him by the Danish Ambassador for his involvement in a Diplomatic Mission to Copenhagen. After being demobbed in October of 1946, Flight Lieutenant Redhead resigned his commission in February 1947.
After the war, Robert joined the NSW Police Force and later became a prosecutor. He rose to the rank of Superintendant as Chief of the Police Prosecuting Branch.
But it was in meeting Margaret that Robert would finally have a life changing event that was not brought on by his mother or Nazis.