Unknown WWII NZ fighter aces

[Dave Homewood]

Up till now I'd always been under the impression that the list of fighter aces on the New Zealand Fighter Pilot Museum's website was pretty much definitive. However I just discovered that Wikipedia has 40 more WWII NZ aces on their WWII NZ fighter ace listing that don't appear on the NZFPM site.

Here's the NZFPM link
www.nzfpm.co.nz/article.asp?id=aces

And Here's Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_aces_from_New_Zealand

The extra names on the latter include the following men - does anyone know more about them please? Can anyone explain why they are not included on the NZFPM site? Some are well known names like Alan Gawith, Dusty Miller and Jim McCaw. Many however I have never heard of. Did some of these aces attain that title due to their shooting down of V-1's rather than aircrfat perhaps? However others died long before the V1 came about, so I'm confused.

Bary, Ronald Edward - 6 kills - KIA 12 April 1945

Bonham, Gordon Loversidge "Snowy" - 6 kills - KIA 25 Sep 1944

Bremner, Robert Duff 11 kills

Cammock, Raymond John 21 kills KIA 6 October 1944

Costello, Maurice James "Morrie" 5 kills

Cullen, James Roy "Jimmy" 18 kills

Danzey, Raymond Jack "Dan" 13 kills

Eagleson, Owen David "Ginger" 26 kills POW

Gawith, Alan Antill 5 kills, DFC ¢À, POW, Surviving Aircrew

Hall, Bevan Mason 9 kills KIA 27 December 1944

Hammond, Derek Harold 8 kills

Hart, William Alfred 8 kills

Hayton, Gilbert McLean "Gillie" 6 kills - Drowned aboard HMT Laconia 20 October 1942

Hooper, Garnet J Michael "Gus" 11 kills

Kalka, William Arthur "Wacky" 9 kills - KIA 25 March 1945

Kleinmayer, Robert Gordon "Dutch" 8 kills

Kuhn, Edmund Eric Geddes 5 kills

Lawless, Frank Brewster "Bruce" 10 kills

McCarthy, Kevin 6 kills

McCaw, James Hugh "Black Mac" 20 kills

Marra, T B 5 kills

Mason, Henry Maurice "Morrie" 7 kills KIA 19 July 1948

Miller, William Lister "Dusty" 7 kills

Nicholls, Charles William Kelvin 5 kills

O'Connor, Brian John 11 kills

Pannel, Geoffroy Charles Russell 5 kills

Porteous, James Kerrow 7 kills

Powell, Neville Joseph "Pip" 6 kills

Sames, Arthur Norman "Artie" 8 kills

Scott, Donald Stuart 14 kills

Short, Sydney John 6 kills

Smith, Keith Alexander 10 kills

Stead, Allen Bennetto 5 kills KIA 6 January 1945

Tanner, Eric William "Rick" 6 kills

Trott, William Allan Liddell 7 kills - KIFA 17 February 1955

Watters, Joseph 8 kills

White, Geoffrey Gordon 5 kills - KIA 23 May 1943

Williams, Stanford Seaton "Bill" 11 kills - KIA 22 Dec 1944

Wipiti, Bert Samuel 6 kills - KIA 3 October 1943

Worthington, John Colin 5 kills

[angelsonefive]

Hi Dave,
I see some 486 Squadron pilots in your list.
The following comes from Jimmy Sheddan's book ' Tempest Pilot.'

F/O RJ Cammock, 20 V1 + 1 shared.
F/L JR Cullen, 16 V1.
F/O RD Bremner, 7 V1, 1/2 Me.262, 1/3 Dornier 217.
F/O OD "Eagle" Eagleson, 21 V1, 1/2 Me.262, 1/2 Ju.352, 1 FW190, 1 FW44, 1 Fi.156.
W/O WA "Wacky" Kalka, 8 V1.
F/L AN "Arty" Sames, 1/2 FW190, 1 FW190, 1/3 FW190.

Any variation between these lists will be accounted for by victories scored with other squadrons.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks. I suspect many of these extras are V1 aces ratehr than aircraft vs aircraft aces, which was still a very dangerous task but a little different from dualling with another pilot I guss, so maybe that's why these have been left off the NZFPM list. But people like Gillie Hayton, Geoffrey White and Bert Wipiti could not have been fighting the V1, as they died before the V1's were launched into the fight.

There are others too who scored more than five kills but deliberately avoided being known by the title of ace. One such was Dereck "Bill" Kain who shot down more than five aircraft but often never reported kills, and in some cases allowed others to claim them. He felt sick about killing others and wanted no recognition for it.

Some aces who're on the list hate the 'ace' title too, such as Owen Hardy DFC whom I interviewed last week. He did not want to talk at all about the combat, not even off-camera.

[angelsonefive]

Some more 486 pilots on the Wiki. list :

F/L SS Williams, 1 Me.109, 8 V1.
F/O WAL "Bill" Trott, 1 FW190, 6 V1.
F/L EW Tanner, 1 FW190, 4 V1.
F/O SJ Short, 1 FW190, 5 V1.
F/L NJ Powell, 1 Me.109, 5 V1.
F/O EJ O'Connor, 1 FW190, 8 V1 + 1 V1 shared.
F/L FB "Bruce" Lawless, 10 V1.
F/O RJ Danzey, 1 FW190, 11 V1.

All the above air victories scored while with 486.

[angelsonefive]

I found some Battle of Britain pilots in the list :

P/O RE Bary, 229 Squadron, Hurricanes. Killed in flying accident, 12 April, 1945.
Sgt GCR Pannel, 3 Squadron, Hurricanes.
P/O J Watters, 236 Squadron, Blenheims.

I have no idea of their scores in The Battle, or of their subsequent careers.

[Andy Wright]

Wipiti, Bert Samuel 6 kills - KIA 3 October 1943

This is the first I've heard of Bert having more than 3.5 kills. He was, according to Cull's Buffaloes Over Singapore a marvellous pilot so perhaps some research has allocated further kills to him during that period. Did he meet with further success while with 485 Sqn in England? I'll have to check the relevant copy of Errol Martyn's For Your Tomorrow.

[oldnavy]

Absolutely gob smacked!

Your little country had the highest per capita number of fighter aces before this came out! Incredible?! I wonder how many were left off the official list for the common practice we see today where we Aussies or the Britz simply claim Kiwis as their own when they do something spectacular? Could that have happened here Dave?

[Dave Homewood]

Antipodean Andy informed me the other day that a great and reverred Australian P-51 ace was in fact New Zealand born. We don't have him on any of our lists and in fact I'd never heard of him.

Admittedly a few of our aces were born in Britain and grew up here (such as the great Johnny Gibson) but they called themselves Kiwis as this was their home, just as the RAAF ace would have called Aussie home I guess.

I'm fairly convinced most of the men on this list from Wikipedia are "aces" for shooting down five or more V1's, and/or are simly errors as in the Wipiti case.

[phasselgren]

The author Christopher Shores has high reputation for his books about fighter pilots including Aces High and Those Other Eagles (fighter pilots with two to four claims for destroyed enemy aircraft). I believe most of the lists with allied aces (excluding US) on the net are based on his books. He has also received help from Paul Sortehaug with his later books and I suppose this gives a guarantee that the information about the New Zealand pilots is of high quality but of course everyone can make a mistake.

His first edition of Aces High included some names that later research showed was incorrect and these were excluded from the 2nd edition of the book. Among them were Alan Antill Gawith, T B Marra and Charles William Kelvin Nicholls (2 destroyed) listed on Wikipedia but also Thomas Bernard Fitzgerald from the list on New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum. Other pilots were included in Aces High in spite of claims for less than five ´kills´ including J R C Kilian (2 and 1 shared destroyed) and Hector Douglas McGregor (2 destroyed) both from the NZFPM-list plus Derek Harold Hammond from the Wikipedia list. There is still a possibility that some of these reached five claims but Christopher Shores could not find the information.

The V-1 aces were listed in Aces High 2 and most of the names from the Wikipedia list were V-1 aces. For more info see list of New Zealand V-1 aces on aces.safarikovi.org/

As mentioned above it has been very difficult to confirm the real claims for some pilots because documents was lost. This is especially the case for pilots involved in the early campaigns against Japan (Singapore/Dutch East Indies/Burma). Among these pilots that probably are aces or at least nearly aces you can find Edmund Eric Geddes Kuhn (including 2 claims with 488 Squadron in Singapore), Vic Barg and Bert Samuel Wipiti (yes he is probably an ace with 3 and 3 shared destroyed including two shared with 485 Sqn).

You can also discuss how the claims shall be counted. As an example we can look at Bert Wipiti´s claims 3 and 3 shared destroyed = 6 kills obviously an ace or with more strict mathematics 3 + 3x1/2 destroyed =4,5 kills not an ace. Even more extreme are the claims of Joseph Watters with 2 destroyed and 6 shared destroyed = 8 kills compared with 2 + 1x¼ and 5x1/6 = 3,2 kills.

Finally as Dave mentions there can be a discussion about the nationality. Several aces have lived in both New Zealand and Australia before WW2 and sometimes mistakes are made. I found no connection with New Zealand for Donald Stuart Scott (Wikipedia´s list) when I checked in Aces High but maybe someone other information.

In short what I am trying to say is that it is difficult to make a 100% correct list. Both the list on New Fighter Pilots Museum´s site and the list on Wikipedia have some mistakes but there is no doubt about the fact that New Zealand had a an extremely high number of aces.

[Dave Homewood]

Which ones on the NZFPM are mistakes, Peter?

I was told by Larry Hill recently that the RAF never kept ace lists, or score sheets, and all the ace lists were compiled postwar with retrospective information. So I guess that is why there's a lot of margin for error and differences.

[phasselgren]

Dec 15, 2009 9:30:55 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

Which ones on the NZFPM are mistakes, Peter?

I was told by Larry Hill recently that the RAF never kept ace lists, or score sheets, and all the ace lists were compiled postwar with retrospective information. So I guess that is why there's a lot of margin for error and differences.

Sorry for the late answer but it has been a busy week.

RAF was focused on the team effort and not the individual pilots during WW2 but the squadrons normally kept record of all claims. They were included in the squadrons Operational Record Books and there was Combat Reports for every claim. The quality of these records varies a lot especially early in the war and as I mentioned earlier many records was lost in the early campaigns.

Even if the term ace was not used by RAF I have read several times that a fighter pilot could normally expect a decoration when he had destroyed five enemy aircraft. The number of claims was also often mentioned in the citation for a decoration but surprisingly often the number of claims in citations seems to differ from the real claims.

Regarding the aces listed on New Zealand Fighter Pilots site:
Christopher Shores have not found evidence for 5 claims by the following pilots.

Wing Commander Thomas Bernard Fitzgerald
Squadron Leader John Rutherford Clark Kilian (2 and 1 shared destroyed according to Aces High)
Hector Douglas McGregor (2 destroyed according to Aces High)
Group Captain Eric William Whitley

Even if they not were aces they were brave pilots. Three of them were involved in the Battle of Britain. Fitzgerald and Whitley transferred from Bomber Command to Fighter Command. They had earlier fought in France flying Faire Battles and you probably know how dangerous this was.

[Andy Wright]

Antipodean Andy informed me the other day that a great and reverred Australian P-51 ace was in fact New Zealand born. We don't have him on any of our lists and in fact I'd never heard of him.

Andrew 'Nicky' Barr is the chap Dave and I were talking about. He scored all of his victories in Kittyhawks with 3 Sqn RAAF but flew Mustangs after returning from POW camp.

[chrishall]

Bevan Mason Hall was my father.

[chinapilot]

Hayton, Gilbert McLean "Gillie" 6 kills - Drowned aboard HMT Laconia 20 October 1942

He actually survived in a lifeboat for around 40 days before he died.

Only happen to know this as his grand-niece mentioned him to me and the indomitable Errol Martyn filled in the rest.

[oggie2620]

When Errol catches up with this thread I am sure he will add some useful tidbits of information too.

[Dave Homewood]

Welcome chrishall, have you any memories or photos or anything you might be able to share about your father please?

[Tony]

Apr 26, 2011 22:54:07 GMT 12 chrishall said:

Bevan Mason Hall was my father.

Welcome to the forum Chris.
Sorry about the loss of your dad, you must have been devastated as a kid, I know I would have been.

There is a profile of your dad's last Tempest on the web here:
img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/572/pics/9_7.jpg

Tony

[johnsames]

I am John Sames elder son of Arthur Norman Sames and my son has expressed an interest in the WWII history of his grandfather. Dad died in 1980 but his life in RNZAF and RAF were alwasty part of our lives growing up. Just linking up to see what is out there.

[errolmartyn]

Aug 3, 2011 4:32:05 GMT 12 johnsames said:

I am John Sames elder son of Arthur Norman Sames and my son has expressed an interest in the WWII history of his grandfather. Dad died in 1980 but his life in RNZAF and RAF were alwasty part of our lives growing up. Just linking up to see what is out there.

John,

From Gp Capt Colin Hanson's By Such Deeds - Honours and Awards in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1923-1999 pub by Volplane Press (i.e., me) in 2001:

SAMES, Flight Lieutenant Arthur Norman, DFC.
NZ411453 & 132862; Born Newmarket, Auckland, 25 Jul 1918; RNZAF 2 Mar 1941 to 3 Aug 1945, Res. to 7 Apr 1965; Pilot.
Citation Distinguished Flying Cross (28 Mar 1944): [486 Sqn RNZAF (Typhoon)] This officer has completed a very large number of operational sorties. He has participated in many bombing attacks against heavily defended targets in northern France, invariably pressing home his attacks whatever the opposition encountered. He has also attacked enemy shipping, inflicting much damage. On three occasions Flying Officer Sames has encountered enemy aircraft and in the subsequent air combats has twice destroyed an FW 190 and shared in the destruction of another. A most capable and determined pilot, he has always displayed coolness and courage of a high degree. Flt Lt Sames served with 486 Sqn, Mar-Dec 1943, before instructing on 55 OTU and 3 TEU RAF.
He was later posted to 137 Sqn RAF (Typhoon), Jun-Sep 1944, and returned to NZ to serve with 14 Sqn RNZAF (Corsair) at Ardmore Jun-Jul 1945. Post-war, he served with the Air Training Corps at 4 School Unit, Auckland Grammar School. Died Epsom, Auckland, 12 Dec 1980.

Errol

[Dave Homewood]

Welcome to the forum John. If you or any member of your family happens to have his Flying Logbook, that will provide some really interesting details of his history. If there's anything in there that you don't understand, we here should be able to helpinterpret it for you.

Another option too is you can get a copy of his service records from the NZDF. Here's a page on how to go about that:
www.nzdf.mil.nz/personnel-records/nzdf-archives/accessing-military-service-records.htm

The New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum has closed down for now for a re-structuring but I believe the staff are still there, they may be able to help with further information as their focus was on NZ fighter pilots and particularly the NZ aces. Their website is here:
www.nzfpm.co.nz/

And the Air Force Museum of New Zealand is also worth a try too, their website is at:
www.airforcemuseum.co.nz/

I would be interested to know if you have his logbook. I note you're in Barbados and I guess it may be with another family member in another part of the world (such as NZ). A good tip is these days it's easy and cheap to get a copy of a logbook by using a digital camera and simply photographing each page. The person can stick it on a dic, and hey presto, you can be reading it in Barbados without the original ever leaving home. I'll bet he has a really interesting logbook too. I'd love to see it myself.