A mystery Corsair

[komata]

Dave

Thanks for your reply and for the additional questions:

FWIW, my father was at RNZAF Rukuhia when the aircraft came back from the islands', demobbing in late 1946. In 1947 he was in Britain.

It appears that the 'rifle-butt' treatment meted out to these machines was intended to leave the 'important machinery' (the 'moving bits' such as engines etc.) intact, but to make sure that the aircraft couldn't be started from inside the cockpit by 'unauthorised personnel'. With large numbers of potentially-dangerous aircraft literally 'lying around', this was presumably considered to be a reasonable action by 'those in charge'. Presumably too, if the aircraft were to be returned to service, replacing instrument panels would have been a 'relatively' easy matter.

[Dave Homewood]

Perhaps that is what the team was doing from 1946-1948, fixing the panels?

[scrooge]

strange, because simply removing the fuel and/or battery would make the aircraft impotent, reuseable and both of those items would have had value at the time.

[davidd]

The majority of the American combat aircraft at Rukuhia (plus 12 PV-1s at Ohakea, and the 22 SBDs at Hobsonville) were advertised for sale in later November 1947 and the vast majority were sold to Larsen as mentioned above, in March 1948. Thre were some aircraft at Rukuhia and other places that were specifically excluded from sale; these were the designated "reserve aircraft", and included examples of practically all types, including (briefly) 4 PV-1 Venturas at Rukuhia which were back-up for the 12 in service at Ohakea with 2 Squadron. However the 2 Sqdn aircraft were hustled out of service in June 1946, and the need for "stored reserve" PV-1s ceased at this point. A few F4U-1Ds and quite a few FG-1Ds were designated as "stored reserves" as well for a period, to act as back up for "the Japan commitment" (who had actually taken 6 reserves with them to Japan anyway), and the CFE establishment at Ardmore (soon moved to Ohakea). However these Corsair commitments ceased in about late 1947. Incidentally the reason that most of these aircraft were sold for scrap was not primarily lack of money as such, but more like a lack of any perceived operational requirement to maintain even a modest standing strike force. Admittedly the outlook at the time was {apparently) not particularly threatening, and everybody was hoping for the "Peace" dividend. The incumbent Government (at this time Labour, under Fraser) could see no real need to maintain a Ventura squadron for instance, and figured that a small number of Catalinas and Hudsons could handle any needs in the immediate future (mostly the ASR obligation to ICAO). However the biggest problem insofar as the Ruukuhia aircraft were concerned was that they were all American! Professed Government policy (National and Labour) was to re-equip with entirely British aircraft when came the time, but this process was considered to be a few years down the track, as the Government had "other priorities" in the short term, and believed they had several years before this particular expenditure bullet had to be bitten. However they were probably a little bit optomistic on this estimate, and in the short term it resulted in poor morale throughout all the NZ armed services. In the event, even after new aircraft were ordered in 1950, it took several years to receive all the new aircraft, as the RAF was all through this period (basically late 1940s and most of the 1950s) being gradually re-equipped with modern aircraft (some of which had to be funded by the American taxpayer, as Britain was economically on the ropes and quite groggy), and British industry was also trying to meet export orders from foreign customers - "Export or Die") - the RNZAF found itself at the end of a very long queue.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

OK, so Derm and his team were maintaining SOME of the aircraft at Rukuhia then, not all. This makes a lot more sense then I guess. Thanks David.

[komata]

As an indication perhaps, of the less than pristine condition of the aircraft concerned, I recall reading (though not sure where) that the 14 SQN aircraft that went to Japan were 'The best that were available at Rukuhia'. The implication of that statement seemed to be that they were not exactly 'factory fresh'. Given that these machines had only been at Rukuhia for a few months, the comment perhaps says a lot about the prevailing conditions under which they were 'stored'.

Just a thought...

[Dave Homewood]

Don't forget that they had all come down from the Pacific where they had been accepted, assembled and used. None of the RNZAF Corsairs by 1946 were 'factory fresh'.

[baz62]

They weren't repainted were they? Or rather they didn't have any major repaints, they painted out the "Bars" on the roundels I know that much, perhaps the roundels was modified too? So I presume they would have had a look at the servicing records (Form 700?) found the ones with the lowest "faults" and perhaps lowest hours and picked the ones that appealed.

[Dave Homewood]

Chris McDell just discovered this photo on the Hamilton Library Heritage page, which seems to be the same Corsair that this thread is about. In this the aircraft is sitting on a patch of lawn said to be in front of the Hamilton Railway Station (now long gone) and the building seen in the shot across the road was the Horse Bazaar on Ward Street, part of the Waikato Show complex of buildings.