Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 22, 2010 11:38:41 GMT 12
www.times.co.nz/cms/front_page_feature/2010/12/meet_ace_of_skies.php
Meet ace of skies
Friday, 17 December 2010
By CHRIS HARROWELL
• Howick and Pakurunga Times
MEMORIES LIVE ON: Brian Black remembers his service flying in defence of Britain as some of the best years of his life. Times photo Wayne Martin.
FROM the time he was a young man, all Brian Black ever wanted to be was a fighter pilot.
He got to do just that, serving his country as a member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) in the defence of Britain during World War II.
Now 86, he’s proud of his role in helping to stop the spread of fascism across Europe.
Like many Kiwi pilots flying at that time, Mr Black was attached to the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF).
With Robina, his wife of 55 years, the Blacks live in Maraetai in a home they built themselves in their “spare time”, and Mr Black’s love of aviation is as strong today as when he was flying Hawker Hurricanes and the Bolton Paul Defiant fighter jet.
“New Zealand had the highest per capita rate of all the nations with men serving in the RAF,” he told the Times. “There was something about our make-up that, for some reason, all the best pilots and crew happened to be Kiwis.”
After joining the RNZAF in August 1942, the keen young pilot undertook a year’s training at the country’s first purpose-built aerodrome, Seagrove in Manukau, which Mr Black says was an essential base.
“The Japanese military was on its way down and we had no cover [from an air attack]. The New Zealand Army worked out Japan would come through the Manukau Harbour, so they built an aerodrome there.”
He served as a warrant officer in Squadrons 598 and 691, and was stationed at several bases around the UK, including in Exeter and on the Orkney Islands.
Like many pilots, he has an endless supply of tales involving close calls. The one that stands out is a mid-air collision that could have claimed his life in September 1944.
After taking off from Skeabrae Airfield on the Orkneys, he was flying at a height of about 1000 feet, or 300 metres, when he spotted a submarine about to leave Scapa Flow.
To keep it in view, he started a turn to his starboard side when a Spitfire collided with his jet creating what he describes as a “terrific crash”.
Mr Black’s Hawker Hurricane began to lurch and vibrate, and he was thrown around the cockpit.
Luckily he wasn’t far from base and managed to put the big bird down safely, despite the collision breaking off two of the aeroplane’s three propeller blades. “The other pilot would have been doing about 420mph [676kph] to go through my prop like that,” recalls Mr Black.
Another incident he remembers involves a lucky escape for a pilot he flew with.
“It was only our second night of night flying. We were sitting in the crew room and the door opened.
“It was only 20 minutes after this pilot had taken off and he walked back in dragging his parachute behind him on the ground. Our eyes were out on storks I reckon.
“It was his first time and to get out of it alive was amazing. His rocker box had cracked on one side and the motor went.”
As a young man growing up in New Zealand, there was only one thing he wanted to do.
“All I wanted to do was fly. That was the driving factor. I had to do it so I got through all the [RNZAF] courses.
“There was possibly more patriotism in those times – any young guy wanted to be a fighter pilot. We were all mad keen to do that.”
Mr Black still stays in touch with some of his old comrades from back then, including fellow pilot Ron Mayhill, who once had a 20mm canon shell explode within an inch of his face.
It shattered the perspex on the plane and shards are still being removed from his eyes to this day.
“Like me, he never should have lived,” says Mr Black. “He’s a hell of a lucky guy.”
His favourite jet, and one he believes was essential to the war effort, doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
A lot of pilots didn’t like the Hawker Hurricane because it could be difficult to land, but that didn’t bother Mr Black – landing was his speciality.
“The Battle of Britain was actually won by Hurricanes, with Spitfires more of a back-up.”
He describes that most famous of battles as a fight not just for Britain, but “for the next 400 or 500 years”.
At the time of his service with the RAF, Mr Black flew with many men who could be described as true characters.
One of them was a fellow Kiwi pilot by the name of Bert Gledhill, who “had a premonition that he wouldn’t get through the war”.
“He once rode a horse into a pub in Britain and got away with it because he was a Kiwi. No one rode horses into pubs in Britain.”
Mr Black is compiling a list of all the men he served with during World War II.
It runs to several hundred and he’s far from finished.
WHEN the conflict ended, he returned to New Zealand in September 1945 and undertook an apprenticeship as a boilermaker.
He has kept a diary since 1940 and, while he doesn’t write in it every day, it covers the key moments of his life. There are 70 of them so far.
He took a trip down memory lane when Doug Booker generously let the Times use his Mach 9 Spitfire for a photo shoot.
The St Heliers resident owns one of the few such planes in New Zealand and wheeled it out onto a runway at Ardmore Aerodrome so Mr Black could relive a few old memories.
He easily slipped back into his old uniform and climbed in the plane’s cockpit as if he still did it every day.
Two months ago, Mr Black needed a triple bypass on his heart and received a new aorta valve.
He faced that challenge with the same courage and spirit as when he was serving his country in the fight for freedom.
“I told the surgeon I wanted a Rolls Royce Merlin valve, but he didn’t know what I meant.”
Meet ace of skies
Friday, 17 December 2010
By CHRIS HARROWELL
• Howick and Pakurunga Times
MEMORIES LIVE ON: Brian Black remembers his service flying in defence of Britain as some of the best years of his life. Times photo Wayne Martin.
FROM the time he was a young man, all Brian Black ever wanted to be was a fighter pilot.
He got to do just that, serving his country as a member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) in the defence of Britain during World War II.
Now 86, he’s proud of his role in helping to stop the spread of fascism across Europe.
Like many Kiwi pilots flying at that time, Mr Black was attached to the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF).
With Robina, his wife of 55 years, the Blacks live in Maraetai in a home they built themselves in their “spare time”, and Mr Black’s love of aviation is as strong today as when he was flying Hawker Hurricanes and the Bolton Paul Defiant fighter jet.
“New Zealand had the highest per capita rate of all the nations with men serving in the RAF,” he told the Times. “There was something about our make-up that, for some reason, all the best pilots and crew happened to be Kiwis.”
After joining the RNZAF in August 1942, the keen young pilot undertook a year’s training at the country’s first purpose-built aerodrome, Seagrove in Manukau, which Mr Black says was an essential base.
“The Japanese military was on its way down and we had no cover [from an air attack]. The New Zealand Army worked out Japan would come through the Manukau Harbour, so they built an aerodrome there.”
He served as a warrant officer in Squadrons 598 and 691, and was stationed at several bases around the UK, including in Exeter and on the Orkney Islands.
Like many pilots, he has an endless supply of tales involving close calls. The one that stands out is a mid-air collision that could have claimed his life in September 1944.
After taking off from Skeabrae Airfield on the Orkneys, he was flying at a height of about 1000 feet, or 300 metres, when he spotted a submarine about to leave Scapa Flow.
To keep it in view, he started a turn to his starboard side when a Spitfire collided with his jet creating what he describes as a “terrific crash”.
Mr Black’s Hawker Hurricane began to lurch and vibrate, and he was thrown around the cockpit.
Luckily he wasn’t far from base and managed to put the big bird down safely, despite the collision breaking off two of the aeroplane’s three propeller blades. “The other pilot would have been doing about 420mph [676kph] to go through my prop like that,” recalls Mr Black.
Another incident he remembers involves a lucky escape for a pilot he flew with.
“It was only our second night of night flying. We were sitting in the crew room and the door opened.
“It was only 20 minutes after this pilot had taken off and he walked back in dragging his parachute behind him on the ground. Our eyes were out on storks I reckon.
“It was his first time and to get out of it alive was amazing. His rocker box had cracked on one side and the motor went.”
As a young man growing up in New Zealand, there was only one thing he wanted to do.
“All I wanted to do was fly. That was the driving factor. I had to do it so I got through all the [RNZAF] courses.
“There was possibly more patriotism in those times – any young guy wanted to be a fighter pilot. We were all mad keen to do that.”
Mr Black still stays in touch with some of his old comrades from back then, including fellow pilot Ron Mayhill, who once had a 20mm canon shell explode within an inch of his face.
It shattered the perspex on the plane and shards are still being removed from his eyes to this day.
“Like me, he never should have lived,” says Mr Black. “He’s a hell of a lucky guy.”
His favourite jet, and one he believes was essential to the war effort, doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
A lot of pilots didn’t like the Hawker Hurricane because it could be difficult to land, but that didn’t bother Mr Black – landing was his speciality.
“The Battle of Britain was actually won by Hurricanes, with Spitfires more of a back-up.”
He describes that most famous of battles as a fight not just for Britain, but “for the next 400 or 500 years”.
At the time of his service with the RAF, Mr Black flew with many men who could be described as true characters.
One of them was a fellow Kiwi pilot by the name of Bert Gledhill, who “had a premonition that he wouldn’t get through the war”.
“He once rode a horse into a pub in Britain and got away with it because he was a Kiwi. No one rode horses into pubs in Britain.”
Mr Black is compiling a list of all the men he served with during World War II.
It runs to several hundred and he’s far from finished.
WHEN the conflict ended, he returned to New Zealand in September 1945 and undertook an apprenticeship as a boilermaker.
He has kept a diary since 1940 and, while he doesn’t write in it every day, it covers the key moments of his life. There are 70 of them so far.
He took a trip down memory lane when Doug Booker generously let the Times use his Mach 9 Spitfire for a photo shoot.
The St Heliers resident owns one of the few such planes in New Zealand and wheeled it out onto a runway at Ardmore Aerodrome so Mr Black could relive a few old memories.
He easily slipped back into his old uniform and climbed in the plane’s cockpit as if he still did it every day.
Two months ago, Mr Black needed a triple bypass on his heart and received a new aorta valve.
He faced that challenge with the same courage and spirit as when he was serving his country in the fight for freedom.
“I told the surgeon I wanted a Rolls Royce Merlin valve, but he didn’t know what I meant.”
