Lots Happening in the Research

I have made more progress lately in the research for my book project. I spent a couple of days last week with Brian Baber, a true gentleman who flew in the RNZAF in WWII. He trained in New Zealand on Tiger Moths and Hawker Hinds before being posted to Singapore where he eventually found himself a junior fighter pilot on No. 243 Squadron RAF, flying the Brewster Buffalo.Just as he joined the squadron the war with Japan erupted and he and his fellow squadron members were in the thick of it. The squadron is an interesting one in that the CO and Flight Commanders, plus the ground staff, were all British and members of the Royal Air Force. However the rest of the pilots were all kiwis and members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The most famous of them was Geoffrey Fisken who went on to become an ace in the Buffalo. I filmed an interview with Brian and he is the third membe of that squadron I have now filmed interviews with, the other two being Geoffrey Fisken, who went on later to P-40 Kitthawks to great acclaim; and James Cranstone, who’s subsequent career saw him flying Hawker Hurricanes and then P-47D Thunderbolts in Burma.

Meanwhile Brian escaped Singapore and got back to New Zealand where he took a different direction, onto reconnaissance bombers. He joined No. 8 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron at Gisborne flying Vickers Vildebeests and Vincents shortly after the unit arrived there from Whenuapai. He also flew Oxfords with the squadron, and carried out many patrols, anti-submarine escorts for convoys, and an intense submarine search. I got a lot of info from Brian for the chapter on this squadron, for which I am most grateful. Brian stayed with the unit when it transformed into No. 30 Squadron, first flying Harvards and then Grumman Avengers. He did a tour in the Pacific with the Avengers but was forced to give up flying after a sinus problem medically grounded him, and thereafter he became a Flying Control officer at Rongotai.

As well as Brian I have also met up with John McDowell, whom I have already interviewed twice by phone but am pleased to have met in person. John joined the Territorial Air Force in 1938 and trained as an Observer (taking in navigation, air gunnery, wireless operating and bomb aiming). He was in the Christchurch (Territorial) Squadron, and continuedwith that unit when war broke out and the squadron became the Christchurch (General Reconnaissance) Squadron. He then saw service with the New Zealand (General Reconnaissance) Squadron, followed by No. 1 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron, No. 1 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron Detachment and Waipapakauri, then No. 7 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron, and eventually No. 3 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron in the Pacific. After a tour in the Pacific he went to the Pacific Ferry Unit in Hawaii, involved in flying the Venturas to New Zealand. And then he became a navigation instructor at the School of General Reconnaissance and Navigation at New Plymouth. At one point he underwent a USAAF course in the new Loran naviagation system and then came home to teach others about it. He was on the first RNZAF Loran flight around the Pacific in a C-47 Dakota flown by Maurie Pirie. Having the oppotunity to photograph John’s extensive logbook for my project is really great, there will be lots of details within that will help fill gaps here and there. These are just a few ofthe activities I have been filling my days with up here in Auckland.

Auckland Research

In the past week I have made some good progress. Firstly I visited Mr Noel Arnott, who was one of the founding pilots of No.3 (GR) Squadron in 1941, and he stayed with the squadron through the periods of Baffins and Vincents at Harewood, and then to Whenuapai on Oxfords and Hudsons, and then he left New Zealand with the squadron when they flew north to Plaine des Gaiacs, then to Espiritu Santo and then to Guadalcanal. Following a tour with No. 3 GR there, he came home with an illness and was out of flying for a little while, but was then posted to the newly formed Pacific Ferry Flight at Hawaii, and he became the first pilot to touch down in New Zealand with a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura. Later in the war he commanded the Detached Flight at Guadalcanal, ferrying troops and mail and cargo around the Pacific.

Later in the week in two visits tothe Auckland War Memorial Museum I have been able to photograph several flying logbooks of GR Squadron pilots, including engineering officer/pilot George Carter of the Wellington (GR) Squadron, 8GR Vincent pilot Harry Kinder who was sadly lost on a patrol from Gisborne, and 1GR pilot Graham Hamlin who sadly crashed a Hudson into the hangar at Whenuapai and lost his life. It all adds a little morte detail to the big picture. The staff at the Auckland War Memorial Museum are absolutely excellent, really on to it, and genuinely interested in the project and willing to help.

It has been a while…

I have been so busy lately I have no made an update here at the blog for months I’m afraid. However lots has been happening though. I have made a bit of progress on the book project and a lot of progress on filming veterans.

Firstly the book project, this sadly has been idle for some time as other things keep me busy but last week I received a lovely scanned copy of the logbook of George Fisher from his daughter Rosemary Menzies. This logbook has already been a huge help to me in filling in details of the Auckland (Territorial) Squadron and the Auckland (General Reconnaissnce) Squadron. The chapter on this unit is now rather advanced but there are still gaps in the history as very few records have survived and most of the squadron members are no longer with us. But George’s logbook has seriously been brillaint in filling many of those gaps with dates and facts where previously I only had rumour and hearsay. The log has also added to my understanding of which individual aircraft were on the unit too which is very good.

I’m sure that George’s logbook will be equally useful as I go through the rest of his career. He served after this period with the New Zealand General Reconnaissance Squadron, then No. 1 (GR) Squadron, and in 1942 he was made the Commanding Officer of No. 3 (GR) Squadron when they deployed to Guadalcanal. I hope to find more time over the next few weeks to continue with this line of research. It has been quite fulfilling actually to get back into the book project, there’s a lot of stuff in the Auckland (T/GR) Sqn chapter that I’d completely forgotten about even writing, because it’s been so long since I last looked at it. Considering there’s so little info around I now feel that a rather concise history has been built up, a history that has never been properly told before.

As for filming over the past few months this has been continuing apace. Lately I have filmed several very interesting people. Of particular note one person who I was thrilled to meet and to interview was the last surviving Dambuster pilot, Les Munro. He’s a great chap, and so interesting.

I have filmed several men who were sailors in the Royal New Zealand Navy in WWII, plus a few Home Fornt people (a Home Guard member and a Woman’s Land Army girl). And of course there have been some more airmen, including some lesser remembered trades such as a medic who served at Espiritu Santo, and a radar operator who served at Guadalcanal and New Georgia in the RNZAF.

I think though for me a particularly interesting area has been filming veterans of the 2nd NZ Division, NZEF, who were in the Italy campaign of 1943-1945. I have filmed nine such people in the past month, two of them being Artillery men and they other seven all being in the Infantry. Six of those were in the 24th Battalion and one in the 22nd Battalion. The plan is to gather more of these incredible stories over the near future, and I’m looking for veterans of all the campaigns, Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy as well as the 3rd Division in the Pacific. If you know anyone who might be a good candidate for an interview I’m keen to hear – email me on dave_daasnz@hotmail.com

With the Italy Campaign material as well as the already ongoing project with Townsquare to create the musuem touchscreen displays, I’m working with Peter Lee, Deputy Mayor of Waipa, to create something more. We plan to put togetehr a documentary film with the footage and also a website about the NZEF’s Italian Campaign. So, watch this space.

Central North Island filming trip

I returned on Sunday from a week-long trip around four central North Island towns to meet and film interviews with WWII veterans.

The trip went really well, with the only drawbacks being a couple of days of rain, and one of the Corsair pilots pulling out because he was ill. 

Oon the first day I went to New Plymouth and I visited Dave Howlett. He was great to interview, and talked freely about various aspects of operating the Chance Vought F4U-1D Corsair. This included a take off where it all went wrong. He took off but the engine cut just off the deck and the aircraft came down hard. Flames shot out along his right side and his right arm was torched. He was in hospital for ages.

On the second day I went and saw a great hero of mine, E.S. “Bill” Allison. I discovered Bill’s story a few years back when I was shown a letter he wrote, which lead me to tack down his books called Kiwi At Large and Kiwi Vagabond. Bill was a schoolteacher in the bush before the war but joined the Army in 1939 and went with the First Echelon to Egypt. He described to me the whole setting up of Maadi Camp and the local town of Maadi, etc, and the training they did and the early war situation. He then talked for about an hour about the Greece campaign which was amazing to hear, as in my opinion it’s so under rated compared with other big NZ battles like Crete, Monte Cassino and El Alamain.

Bill was made the runner to Colonel Kippenberger, so he got to see both sides of war, the front lines and the back room strateies going on. He talked about the battles and the evacuation, and then the battles in Crete that he was in. Bill then described the escape back to North Africa, and survivors leave, and then the advance in the desert. He was captured at Sidi Reseq, along with many other kiwis and he told me a little about his captivity. We’d filmed for two and a half hours at this stage and he was getting tired. He’s 92, so I was happy to break it off. I’d love to go back and record more though because he had three years as a POW.

The amazing thing about Bill that I really wanted to talk more about but didn’t get to, is after the war he  couldn’t settle down at all back in NZ. Eventually  he decided he needed to change his life. In the mid-1950′s he quit his job, sold all his things, raised about 60 pounds, and set off on a ship for Australia. Once there he walked across Aussie, then Asia, and he walked across India, onto Egypt, Greece and Crete. All the way as well as visiting tourist places like the Taj Mahal, etc.,  he also visited his own battle sites and the battlefields of ancient wars. He lived in Crete for a few months with a girl he met there and her family. He then moved on to Europe and went walking again and visited Italy (where he tracked down one of his POW guards!!) and to Poland where he crossed to the Soviet side to visit his old camp and was arrested, suspected of spying) and then to France where at the Menin Gate he bumped ino another old Kiwi digger, who was with his wife visiting his own WWI battle sites.

When he finally got to London he stayed there for about ten years working, and he wrote his first book Kiwi At Large all about his travels thus far, and his wartime memories. Bill is essentially the first guy to do the Kiwi OE budget trek across the world. He basically lived from hand to mouth, staying at monestaries which were obliged to allow him a bed and a meal, and also with people who took him in out of kindness, etc. It’s an incredible book and an amazing story. He then got itchy feet in the 1960′s and walked back home to New Zealand, visiting a few other places on the way, and that resulted in the second book, Kiwi Vagabond in the same style. He’s one of the most fascinating people I’ve met and I hope to see him again and get more on tape maybe.

Anyway, that afternoon I was supposed to see Corsair pilot Elliot Lang but sadly he was ill, so we had to cancel the interview. On pure off chance Richard Carstens, my co-director in the filming project, had seen a photo online that day of a veteranflyer so we tracked him down and he was willing to step in without any problem. He is  Wally May. All It turnedout he was a seaman from 1939-43 on NZ merchant ships and he had some rough times at sea, particularly at Malta. He then joined the RAF and trained in South Africa and then Palestine to fly Spitfires at an OTU, before heading to the UK and joining No. 486 (NZ) Squadron. He flew Typhoos and then just after getting onto Tempests he was shot down and bailed out. He ended the war as a POW in hospital after hitting the tail as he ejected from the aircraft. Great chap!

And finally that day I interviewed Fleet Air Arm Seafire pilot Don Manders. He never got into battle so had a fairly mild story but was a nice guy all the same.

Wednesday I went to Wanganui and was met by my mate  Zac Yates who accompanied me to three interviews. The first was with Gavin Gullery who flew Corsairs in No. 20 Squadron RNZAF, the first New Zealand squadron to convert to the type.

The next guy we interviewed was Allan Geary, a wireless mechanic on Catalinas.  We got some fairly interesting stories on tape, but the rest of the visit was spent being shown around his amazing collection of antiques in his wonderful old Victorian villa home. He’s a real character.

Next we went to see James Cranstone who flew the dreaded Brewster Buffaloes in No. 243 Squadron in combat over Singapore; then he flew the Hawker Hurricane in India, and eventually he lead No. 5 Squadron RAF with Republic P-47D Thunderbolts. He was a thoroughly interesting chap and like the others it was a privilege to meet him.

On Thursday I travelled to Palmerston North where I interviewed Tony Pierard. He flew six Pacific tours, three on Kitthawks and three on Corsairs. He had some great stories and his logbook is massive. Prior to his fighter days he’d also flown Hawker Hinds in the Army Co-operation role, another great interest of mine.

 The next interview was with Vin Rabone, another Corsair pilot. He had some great tales too. The proposed Corsair DVD that I hope to create is really taking some shape now.

On Friday I went to Taupo and interviewed John Arkwright, who flew three P-40 tours, the third as the CO of No. 16 Squadron. Again a true gent and a really interesting pilot to meet.

And on Saturday I interviewed Charles Gibbs who flew Lockheed Hudsons and Douglas C-47 Dakotas with a squadron doing air drops and clandestine ops with spies and partisan supplying, etc around North Africa, Italy, Sicily, Yugoslvaia, etc. He then went to a B-26 Marauder squadron flying low level fast shipping reconnaissance, which he loved. He used to fly it so low when being persued by fighters that the prop tips were just six feet off the water. Later he was posted onto Wellingtons with Leigh lights flying for 12 + hours over the cold Atlantic. He told me off tape after the war he flew Dakotas for the RAF in India till the Partition, then he ran a sub-unit of Boscombe Down which was for testing new aircraft in hot conditions based at Khartoum. And later he flew BAe Lightnings, which he said were exhilirating but a waste of time as a weapon.

The last interview for the trip was with Bill Abbey, who was a Royal Navy gunner aboard cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Kent in the Russian Convoys throughout the war. His tales were rather miserable to hear, the hardships tose sailors went went through.

So 12 interviews filmed in six days, and all of them producing gems of stories, some better than others.  Now to plan the next film shoot…

Filming Veterans of WWII

I thought that I should expand this blog’s scope a little to cover a little more than just the General Reconnaissance squadrons. As well as researching and writing, I also do film making and one of the great projects I have been working on kind of overlaps the book project and thus I feel fits in here on the blog.

That is interviewing veterans of the Second World War. I have become an adept interviewer and my specialist knowledge in particulalrly RNZAF history has allowed me to really connect with a lot of veterans who kindly have agreed to be filmed. They know i have a genuine interest plus my own RNZAF background gives us a kindred spirit, so often i have been able to get some brilliant interviews with people who normally shy away from the regular media type interviews.

I had done several RNZAF related filmed interviews over the past few years but in recent months the project has really stepped up when I teamed up with Richard Carstens of Townsquare, and between us we have been travelling all over the North Island and recording interviews with many RNZAF aircrew veterans, from Bomber Command, Fighter Command, RNZAF Pacific squadrons, and other theatres of war.

Also I have filmed a number of New Zealanders who flew in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm in WWII, a fascinating area that i was previously not very familiar with but now that I have had a crash course immersion, listening to all the stories, I have  really had my interest peaked.

We are continuing to film RNZAF and FAA veterans and now planning to expand the project into NZ Army and Navy WWII veterans. If you can recommend any interesting veterans for the project please let me know.

We have plans for this project which I will discuss in a future blog post

Recent Progress

Though the blog does not reflect too much progress lately, I assure you that the project continues to tick along slowly. I have been rather busy the past few months filming interviewes with WWII RNZAF and Fleet Air Arm veterans, so the book has taken a bit of a back seat sadly. But over the Christmas break I did get a bit of work in on the chapter on No. 3 (GR) Squadron and  made some significant gains in the text on that.

Another development came a few weeks ago when i was in Auckland. This story starts back last year after the article about my project was published in the New Zealand Herald. I was telephoned by a guy called Antony Faris who had read the article, and he put his father on the phone. His father was Dr. Bruce Faris, known as Bill, who had been a doctor (or Medical Officer) in the RNZAF during WWII.  I chatted to Bill on the phone and his story was fascinating, but as I’d been rung out of the blue I was not recording the conversation. I asked if I could call him back and do a formal interview, and he was fine with that.

Over the next few months I tried dozens of times to phone Bill Faris but I never managed to get a reply, and the interview sadly never took place. I had his address and a few weeks back I was in Auckland just round the corner from him,  and I had some free time so my mate and I called round there on the off-chance of catching him. We had the video camera and I hoped to get a filmed interview.

Sadly Antony was at the address and he told me his dad had passed away in November. This is really sad, I had very much wanted to interview Bill Faris because he may have been the last RNZAF Doctor who served in wartime. His perspective on the war would have been a really interesting one too, as he would have been able to talk about the diseases and ailments that the men had to cope with while he was on tour with the Bomber Reconnaissance squadrons in places like Guadalcanal and Jacquinot Bay. He would have been able to tell me more  first hand about the time he was aboard a ventura which ditched into the sea and all aboard escaped and got ashore by liferaft. And I’m sure there were many more stories he could have elaborated upon.

However there was a silver lining because Antony was clearing out his fatehr’s home and he has pledged to let me know if he finds any interesting photos or documents, etc. And Antony passed on my details to his siblings too, resulting yesterday in a visit from his sister Susan who kindly brought me some paperwork to see and copy, and also a copy of her ftaher’s memoir. So it seems despite missing out on the interview, I have managed to still get some first-hand experiences from Bill’s writings. I will certainly work some of his stories into the book project, and the family is happy about that.

Last week end I had another success. When I began this project back in 2005 the first major point of contact I had with veterans was being invited to the 2005 General Reconnaissance Association Reunion, held at Silverdale RSA on the North Shore of Auckland. At the lunch I was seated opposite three very interesting and jolly Wireless Operator-Air Gunners. One of those chaps was Bill Edhouse. I hoped to interview him after the do, by phone when I got home. I rang him up but found that due to deafness he was no good on the phone and he insisted that i should visit him to do an interview.

Well, in the ensuing time, by pure co-incidence, my sister Shelley met Bill’s grandson Steve Edhouse, and they now live together and are engaged. For ages we have talked about going to New Plymouth to visit Bill and get his story on tape. last weekend we finally did it, over four years after I first met him.

What a great interview it was too. Bill is a superb storyteller, and he has a very detailed and sharp memory. ot only did I get some excellent new information and personal stories on his time in the Pacific with No. 1 (BR) Squadron, but also a lot of great material on his earlier days as a WOpAG on Hawker Hinds with No. 6 (AC) Squadorn and then No. 20 (AC) Squadron, flying in the Army Co-operation role, and also in defence of NZ’s shores. I got two hours on video tape but feel he could have talked for two days and not run short of great stories. So I’m so pleased to have finally made this milestone of getting Bill’s stories on tape. I’m in the process of scanning his photos, and eventually his memories will be immortalised in the book, and I plan to also write up a history of the Hind squadrons too in the future. On that front Bill is the third memebr of No. 20 (AC) Squadron I’ve interviewed, the others being Tim Murray who also went onto No. 1 (BR) Squadron, and Geoff Bentley who also served on No. 8 (GR) Squadron, and so will also be in the GR Squadron books.

The Probus Talk Was Today…

This morning I spoke to the members of Probus in Cambridge, and the around 60 members assembled were a great and appreciative audience, who offered some excellent questions for me to answer after the presentation. Many came up afterwards to congratulate me on the talk and wish me well in the project, which is great. And afterwards I enjoyed a nice lunch with some of the Probus chaps. It was interesting to discover how many of them have aninterest in aviation and its history.

I have not been able to devote too much time lately to the book project at all, with film work overtaking my time right now. I have been filming interviews with a lot of WWII veterans, particularly RNZAF and Fleet Air Arm vets. I hope to get back to the books sometime soon but right now the filming is very interesting and there are several potential projects that will come out of it. All good stuff.

Probus talk

After the success of my talk to the members of Cambridge branch of the Rotary Club of New Zealand, I have now been asked to give another talk on the same subject – The General Reconnaissance and Bomber Reconnaissance Squadrons – to Cambridge Probus. This will take place on the 18th of November 2009. I’m quite looking forward to it.

Rotary Talk…

After the New Zealand Herald article back in February I was invited by a chap from the local Cambridge branch of Rotary International to give a talk about the Reconnaissance Squadron book project at one of their meetings. That occurred tonight, and I was really pleased with the great response I received from the Rotary members there. They seem like a great group and a good network. Many of them came up to me afterwards for tips of people to talk with (a number of whom I’d already spoken with incidentally). But I think this has also given me some great contacts that I’d never have thought about before and I have been invited to come back when the first book is released and they will help me promote it. As Rotary is worldwide and a vast network, this can only be great.

I also met a very interesting chap who’d father-in-law has a large collection of wartime RNZAF photos, which he is going to follow up on, so i hope something more comes of that.

An interesting twist of fate

Shortly after the February 2009 article about my research that appeared in the New Zealand Herald I heard from a lady who offered me her uncle’s logbook. She said she wasn’t sure if it was any use, but she thought he’d served in the Pacific and he’d died years ago so it was of no interest to her. She kindly posted it to me, and it turned out it was the logbook of a Navigator named R.L. Branch. There was a note in the front form the lady stating his full name was Richard Laurence Branch, commonly known as Dick. His Service No. was NZ411362.

On opening the book I soon found he had done his training in Canada under the Empire Air Training Scheme, and returned to the RNZAF to join No. 4 (GR) Squadron in Fiji where he usually flew in the crew of a Flying Officer McPhail.

Eventually he was posted to No. 3 (GR) Squadron at Henderson Field and flew in the crew of Flying Officer “Rowdy” Hoyle.  Following some time there he went back to New Zealand and then on to Honolulu where he joined the ‘New Zealand Trans Pacific Ferry Command’, who were ferrying the new Ventura bombers to New Zealand.

After several trips delivering these aircraft he then joined No. 9 (BR) Squadron and did another Pacific tour, this time in Venturas. And then he moved onto theLodestars and Hudsons of No. 41 Squadron, followed by a stint navigating the Dakotas of No. 4o Squadron. He flew right through till 1946 till the squadron was disbanded.

So, I knew about his flying career in detail but I knew nothing really about the man himself, or when or how he had died. I really didn’t like to ask too much of the lady who kindly gave me the logbook to keep because she seemed not to know anything and said none of the family had any interest. I decided to leave it at that, and leave the story behind the man a mystery.

Then a few months later I was in the library searching for the death notice of my father’s uncle for Mum’s family research, and as I was spoolign through microfilmed newspapers from 1946 I spotted an article on the RNZAF in Japan at the time. Suddenly as I read it I relaised next to that article’s column there was the face of an airman staring at me. This is what I found, in that strange way that I should happen to slow the microfilm machine down right there, spot the headline of RNZAF, and then see this mystery man’s own obituary on the 21st of September 1946, in the NZ Herald:

 

Spooky!

So, by a strange quirk of fate I now know how he died, and when, and a little more about the man. I feel a lot easier about possessing his logbook now. he probbaly treasured it, as all aircrew did, and now I shall also give it a very good and safe home. Thanks Dick.

I’m doing an interview tomorrow…

I am hoping to conduct a filmed interview tomorrow with veteran pilot Don Mackenzie AFC, who flew, among many other things, the Vickers Vildebeest operationally. He was in the RNZAF but his main flying of the Vildebeest was in fact in Singapore, so he did not serve as far as I know on an RNZAF General Reconnaissance squadron. However he was flyign the aircraft in the exact same role in the RAF, and with over 1200 hours on the type I am certain he will have some interesting insights to impart about the aircraft which may be useful for the project. Not many pilots in New Zeaand could have flown that many hours on the old Vilde. He also flew in Burma, Inda, Britain and Europe and flew over 50 types of aircraft, as he spent some time as a Ferry Command pilot. So I’m very much looking forward to meeting him and discussing his flying days. Thanks to my good mate Larry Hill for putting me onto Don. Apparently Don has recently written a book on his life, and he told me when we spoke by phone on the weekend that a couple of magazines have also recently interviewed him so keep an eye out for more on him in print. I’ll report back here after the interview.

Success after that longshot!

After returning from a trip to Auckland I have discovered a parcel arrived while I was away which has been sent by Tui, the lady who has inherited the photos and memorabilia of the late airman George “Pat” Patterson. This comes after the longshot research lead that I followed when I spotted Pat’s service number in his death notice, as detailed in a previous posting on the blog.

The parcel contained some great group photos of various units that Pat served on, notibly the Auckland (General Reconnaissance) Squadron and No. 1 (GR) Squadron Detachments at Waipapakauri. Pat was apparently a member of the RNZAF fire crew assigned to these squadrons.

More useful in the parcel were written items that include his diary from the time he was in Tonga and Guadalcanal. I’ve had a brief read of the early entries and have learned a lot from it already, so I look forward to reading more.

There is some other material there on RNZAF Station Waipapakauri which looks very useful and helpful too. And perhaps the most exciting thing for me is a copy of a set of Routine Orders, the last ever I would think, from the Auckland (GR) Squadron just before it disbanded in March 1940. It lists all its members, with their ranks and most usefully their service numbers. It also lists who was being posted from that unit onto the newly forming New Zealand General Reconnaissance Squadron at Whenuapai, and who was staying and being absorbed into the RNZAF Depot at Hobsonville.

Fascinating stuff all round, and well worth the cheeky and unusual chasing up after spotting Pat’s serial number.

More doubt on the propeller story

Well I have now spoken with James “Shorty” Hinchco’s daughter Jan, who also says she has never heard of the story about her father allegedly stepping backwards through a rotating propeller on a Vickers Vincent. See the earlier post for more details.

Jan agreed that it’s the sort of story you’d be likely to tell your kids if it had happened, but she doesn’t remember any mention of it. Jan did give me a contact for her elder sister so I’ll call her soon to see if she knows anything about it.

Shorty Hinchco passed away in 1978, and Jim Sanders’ book A Long Patrol was not released till 1986, so I suspect it was not Hinchco who told Sanders the story personally. Perhaps some embellishment occurred along the way somewhere.

Another good contact made…

Today, after many attempts to catch him at home, I am pleased to have finally spoken with Mr. David Roberts by telephone. David is the son of the late Sir Geoffrey Roberts. Sir Geoff is an important figure in my research into the General Reconnaissance squadrons. He began his flying career in the Royal Air Force, and saw combat flying on the North-West Frontier of India. But he returned home to New Zealand in the late 1930′s and in 1938 he became A Flight Commander in the Christchurch (Territorial) Squadron.

When the war began he was promoted to become the Commanding Officer of the Christchurch (General Reconnaissance) Squadron at Wigram. When the three GR squadrons were merged at Whenuapai, he Geoff was made the CO of the New Zealand General Reconnaissance Squadron, and became that new station’s first commander too.

In January 1941 his squadron changed its name to No. 1 (GR) Squadron and he continued to lead it through those heady days when shipping was being sunk by German navy raiders. In 1942 Geoff Roberts was posted to Fiji where his command of all RNZAF units there saw him overseeing both No. 4 (GR) Squadron and No. 5 (GR) Squadron. Later he became the commander in chief of all RNZAF units in the Pacific.

So indeed an important figure in the history ofthe General Reconnaissnce story. And thankfully his son David has some photos and items from Geoff’s collection. I hope to be able to visit David this coming weekend and maybe something more for the book project will come out of it.

Taking punts in research sometimes pay off

Some of the more interesting finds in my research seem to come from taking a few punts, following the slimmest of leads till they either fizzle out to nothing or hit paydirt, as it were. Today I think one of these slim hopes is very much looking like paydirt.

Last week I was looking at the New Zealand Herald’s online death notices. I check this feature every few days as a rule, just to see if there are any people I know or have heard of who’ve sadly passed away. It’s good because you can use a keyword, so I always put in “RNZAF”. It’s a sad read but often useful for research.

Anyway, last week I noticed an entry for a George James Richard Paterson, whose RNZAF serial number was listed as NZ639162. To the untrained eye there’s probably nothing to this, but I recognised at once that Mr Paterson’s service number was special.

The prefix of ’639′ demotes that he was a member of either the Auckland (Territorial) Squadron or the Auckland (General Reconnaissance) Squadron or both. That squadron – as it was the same squadron essentially, it’s name changed when the war began but it was the same people and aeroplanes doing the same things - was the only unit to hand out service numbers to recruits with the 638 and 639 prefix. The ’6′ denoted the squadron’s number in the Territorial organisation, and the ’38′ or ’39′ denoted the year the airman joined. In George ‘Pat’ Paterson’s case he joined in 1939. He was one of a very rare bunch, only a few hundred men at most served in this early squadron, and sadly I had missed out on interviewing him.

Anyway, his death notice stated he had previously lived at the Switzer Residential Care home in Whangarei. So I decided to take a punt and I found their website and their email. I sent off a hopeful email to see if they could point me in the direction of any family members in case he left behind any photos or other useful items that I could get copies of.

Today I heard back from the resthome with an email explaining that Pat had no family, which is sad, but that he did have lots of friends, and that one of them had inherited his possessions. I was given a contact number for her and I rang her this afternoon.

I’m very pleased to say that she has Pat’s collection of his wartime RNZAF photos, and not only that but also his diary written at Guadalcanal and perhaps other parts of the war, and she is very happy to loan these to me to copy. So I am now expecting a courier back in the next few days or so.

It’s amazing how things turn out. It was all based on a little knowledge and a hunch and a lot of hope. I’ll report back if and when the photos and diary arrive, to tell whether anything of interest turns up. But in the meantime my advice to researchers is keep thinking outside the box and follow up every snippet of a lead that presents itself. Cheers.