David Watt Ian Campbell (1915-1979) is an Australian poet who has written over 15 volumes of prose and poetry.

on 6 November 1939 joined the Royal Australian Air Force. He had learned to fly while at Cambridge and went to train as a pilot at Point Cook. He served in New Guinea, where he was injured and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and flew bombing missions from Darwin in the Northern Territory.

At Cambridge, Campbell also learned to fly, as a member of the University Air Squadron, and shortly after the outbreak of the second world war in 1939, he joined the RAAF. He spent the war flying bombing, reconnaissance and supply missions over New Guinea and Timor, as Commanding Officer of 1 Squadron, 2 Squadron and 32 Squadron as well as training RAAF pilots at airforce bases in Gippsland and outside Darwin. His poem ‘Men in Green,’ published in 1943 (in the Bulletin), arose out of his flying experience in New Guinea. Below is the version of the poem from Campbell’s first published volume Speak With the Sun; he revised the poem later. It remains one of the finest examples of Australian war poetry: