PANTHER PRESS - No. 24 Squadron's Magazine (1945)

[Dave Homewood]

PANTHER PRESS

8th of May 1945

This was the official magazine of No. 24 (Fighter) Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, who flew Corsairs in the Pacific in WWII. This magazine was made by and for the pilots and squadron staff. It is mostly poetry, in-house humour and a bit of history. One of the contributors was Cambridge airman Norman Rosser, and this copy was scanned for me from his collection by his widow Kathy Rosser

[Dave Homewood]

PANTHER PRESS

Circa September 1945 - The Last Issue






This page has the last line or two missing in the scan, i hope to get it re-scanned and replace this

[Dave Homewood]

Does anyone here have a full list of squadron members for No. 24 (F) Squadron for their Pacific tour that began in October 1944, please?

[davidd]

Dave H,
Herewith below is your heart's desire.

S/L M T VANDERPUMP Commanding Officer, from course at FGS, Ardmore, also originally Officer i/c Gunnery.
(C) F/L A G S GEORGE DFC OC A Flight, Deputy OC Sqdn, from Ardmore; also appointed Officer i/c Recreation.
(A) F/L R G BUSH OC B Flight, from No. 14 Sqdn.
P/O J COWAN Intelligence Officer.
* F/O R A FALCONER Ex No. 31 TBF Sqdn.
* F/O F W HOLMES Ex No. 31 TBF Sqdn.
F/O R A MARTIN Deputy OC A Flight, from Ohakea; also appointed Officer i/c Wireless.
* F/O M F MORRISSEY Ex instructor with No. 3 EFTS, Harewood.
* F/O V D RABONE Ex instructor with No. 3 EFTS, Harewood; appointed Officer i/c Equipment.
(B) P/O R H ARMSTRONG (Canadian-trained pilot)
(B) P/O C J BERRYMAN
* P/O J R HAY
* P/O R A FOWELL Ex instructor with No. 3 EFTS, Harewood; also appointed Officer i/c Flying Times (temp.)
(B) P/O R W SMITH Deputy OC B Flight; also appointed Officer i/c Compass Swinging..
(C) P/O L J WILSON
(C) W/O W EADES (see above) – Posted away 2/10/44.
(B) F/Sgt CALDER, J McR
(A) Sgt ABBOTT, O C
(B) Sgt CUNNINGHAM, A
* Sgt GRIFFIN, R H W
(B) Sgt HENDERSON, R W
* Sgt HEPBURN, D N
(B) Sgt KIDDLE, N L
(A) Sgt McLEOD, L A
(A) Sgt KNOWLES, J A
* Sgt ROSSER, N
* Sgt WALKER, I C S
(C) Sgt WEIR, R W (Canadian trained pilot)
(C) Sgt WESTRUPP, R M

FLIGHT ORGANISATION:
Pilots were allocated to Flights on 26/9/44, as follows:
“A” Flight: S/L Vanderpump; F/L George; F/Os Falconer, Martin, Rabone; P/Os Armstrong, Hay; Sgts Cunningham, Griffin, Henderson, Kiddle, Rosser, Walker, Weir.
“B” Flight: F/L Bush; F/Os Holmes, Morrissey; P/Os Berryman, Fowell, Smith, Wilson (and presume W/O Eades), F/Sgt Calder; Sgts Abbott, Hepburn, Knowles, McLeod, Westrupp.
Interestingly, in the Squadron history it is noted that “The flying personnel of the Squadron are arranged in two Flights as follows, but no permanent allocation to Divisions or Sections within each Flight is at present contemplated.”

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks very much for this!

[davidd]

Dave,
Another extract from my notes, which should be read in conjunction with the first posting. This will hopefully assist in making sense of the original list.
David D


No. 24 Fighter Squadron was formed at RNZAF Station Ardmore on the 22nd September 1944 under S/L M T VANDERPUMP, with F/L A G S GEORGE as Deputy Commander. The formation of this unit had been signalled by Administrative Instruction No. 131/44 of 5th September 1944, and had been authorised by ADCO.85, the squadron to comprise Officer Commanding, Intelligence Officer, and 26 pilots. It was to be a lodger unit at Ardmore.
Original postings on 22/9/44 included four pilots from No. 14 Sqdn (marked A in nominal roll, below); seven pilots from No. 19 Sqdn (marked B below); five pilots from Ardmore (marked C below) of whom two (P/O Wilson and Sgt Westrupp) had trained with pilots’ course No. 47B at Woodbourne. W/O Eades had trained with Course 38B (graduated 28/8/43) – although he was sent to the RAF for service, regrettably details of his career whilst serving with that service are unknown. Weir was a Canadian-trained returnee, and A G S George had been serving as an instructor with 4 OTU, and had considerable operational experience with 16 and 17 Sqdns in the early days of the Pacific war.
One further pilot was posted from Ohakea; P/O R A MARTIN, soon promoted to F/O, had previously been a Corsair test pilot at Base Depot, Espiritu Santo, and completed two operational tours with 15 Squadron earlier that year. An additional ten pilots (marked * in nominal roll below) were posted in from Ardmore on 26th September to bring squadron up to 28 pilots. It is presumed all these pilots had completed a course at Corsair Conversion & Test Flight. Five of the ex-Ardmore pilots (P/O Hay, Sgts Griffin, Hepburn, Rosser, and Walker) had trained with pilots' course No. 48B at Woodbourne. Other five comprised two TBF pilots previously with No. 31 Sqdn, and three flying instructors previously with No. 3 EFTS, all of whom had just completed a fighter OTU course.
Squadron strength was completed to establishment on 27th September with the posting in of the unit’s Intelligence Officer, P/O J Cowan, although he remained on leave till the 8th October.
W/O W Eades injured his knee during PT and was posted away on 2nd October, so never proceeded overseas with the squadron. As the squadron was already one pilot in excess of establishment, no further posting action was necessary.
On 3rd October, “S/L Vanderpump entered hospital at Mangere with influenza and throat trouble following which he went on recuperative leave as from 10th October.” He returned to the squadron from leave on the 17th.
Administrative Instruction No. 178/44 of 17th October 1944 detailed the forward move of No. 24 Sqdn, the move having been authorised by ADCO. 122/44. The squadron, comprising 27 pilots and one intelligence officer, was to be moved to Espiritu Santo on the 29th October 1944. No embarkation leave was to be granted to this squadron, which was to report to No. 1 Port Depot, Auckland at 0900 hours on the 28th October for Kitting, Final Medical Examination and Pay Accounting Action. The squadron was to depart from Whenuapai the following day by RNZAF transport aircraft, and its new address was to be NZAPO 361 (Espiritu Santo).
Training was completed on the 26th October 1944 and the squadron reported to No. 1 Port Depot, Auckland, as ordered. The unit’s summary of their initial period at Ardmore noted that flying hours were as follows: Corsair, 654.15; Harvard 82.15; P-40 3.30 for total of 740.00 hours, all achieved with nil accidents. Of the squadron’s training, it was noted that “The Squadron has reached a standard that the Officer Commanding describes as ‘very high considering the short time since formation’”.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks very much again David. I am currently working to transcribe the diaries of Cambridge airman Norman Rosser - who was a pilot on this tour - for Wings Over Cambridge, and it's interesting to have some background on the squadron members he is mentioning.

[jadams]

I believe my father, P/O Graham Adams, flew 75 missions with RNZAF Squadron 24. He is referred to as P/O Zombie Adams on page 4 of this last issue of Panther Press. However, he's not named as a member in the squadron list posted up-thread. Perhaps he arrived later. We have an original copy of the Panther Press newspaper in the family - not this issue - but one in which Dad contributed a droll poem about eating ice cream and lounging on the beach. We also have a number of high quality monochrome images of 24 Squadron's F4Us in flight over the Pacific. I can have a hunt around for them if this is of interest to anyone. We also have Dad's logbooks, which are pretty light on detail, given he was 22 years old at the time, but they do paint a picture of the Squadron day to day.

[Dave Homewood]

Hi jadams, I for one am very interested, I'd love to see the Panther Press edition you have, and the photos please.

[jadams]

Hi there, Dave. I'll chase them up - they are safely in the possession of my mother and my brother, Tom. There are some training photos in NZ, too, apparently, including the crash landing of a dad-flown monoplane I can't identify. Dad's cousin, Ray Swanney (I think that's the right spelling), was also in the Pacific theatre with RNZAF. He first flew a Curtiss P40 out of Guadalcanal and his squadron later upgraded to the F4U. I recall him telling me in Christchurch around 2002 that the boys had been made to fly the tired old Kittyhawks home to NZ to no purpose and that his had caught fire on arrival, forcing him to bail out. He still harboured a grudge over it, according to his tone and he was in his 80s at the time. Something else I recall as a boy in the 1970s was Dad waking from nightmares in which the Japanese were attacking the airfield perimeter. Exactly where that was, I'm not sure but apparently it was a regular occurrence. I'll get back to you with the Panther Press and images in due course.

[Dave Homewood]

There were Japanese all around the RNZAF airfields on Bougainville, and to a lesser extent also on Guadalcanal.

[davidd]

jadams,
Graham Alexander Adams (NZ2307, graduated 2 SFTS Woodbourne with Course 50B as P/O 20/8/44) indeed flew with 24 Squadron, on its second and third tours, so his total of op sorties would be about right (typically a pilot would complete about 35 - 40 ops per tour later in war). You are probably aware that he had transferred to the RNZAF from the Army in the rank of 2nd Lieutenant so would have retained his commissioned status on successful completion of his flying training.
However we have a problem with Ray Swaney (correct spelling) which might be explained by some sort of misunderstanding, as he never become an operational pilot on fighters in the Pacific. He started his actual flying training at 3 EFTS Harewood in late May 1944 (Course 54B), but failed to complete his advanced training on Harvards at Wigram (Course 55A) that November.
The recalled incident of his Kittyhawk catching fire in the air sounds very much like the return of 19 Squadron from the islands in late April 1944, when P/O A A Watson suffered an engine fire on approach to Waipapakauri, but managed to hastily get his aircraft down before anything worse happened! This was just one of several incidents in the rather tragic story of this squadron's ferrying of 18 "well-worn" P-40s to New Zealand, commencing with loss of two aircraft and pilots in thick weather between Guadalcanal and Espiritu Santo. A third aircraft was seriously damaged at Santo after it had to return to the field with electrical failure shortly after take off on the next leg to New Caledonia. Because he had lost control of his propeller pitch control, as well as his undercarriage and flaps, his landing was rather fast and he swung off runway and hit an American F6F fighter - the P-40 was written off (and probably the F6F), but pilot was unhurt. An additional Kittyhawk (P-40K NZ3052, flown by P/O Watson) joined the migration to New Zealand at Espiritu Santo, and the surviving sixteen aircraft all arrived OK at Waipapakauri, but quite apart from Watson's rather smoky arrival, a further crunch was yet to come. Whilst the surviving fifteen aircraft were manoeuvring for take off, two pilots managed to tangle wingtips, so only thirteen duly arrived at Whenuapai. News of this saga probably spread throughout the air force (and was no doubt further exaggerated by the rumour mongers) but even the truth was bad enough, although such episodes were not entirely unknown in most air forces during WW2, including many infinitely worse than this one. A brief account of this 19 Squadron drama was published in Harry Wigley's autobiography - Harry was the CO of this squadron at the time.
Incidentally it may be worth saying that the ferrying of well-worn aircraft back to their homelands was also quite common during WW2, usually to make room at forward airfields for later and more effective aircraft with plenty of flying hours available before first major inspections became due. The RNZAF would have had little discretion in moving near-time expired and semi-obsolete aircraft back to New Zealand as in the incident detailed above, because, although these were nominally NZ-aircraft, and it was the responsibility of the NZ Government to keep them in operational condition and provide all due care, they were nevertheless lend-lease assets and were strictly under the operational control of the American theatre commanders. So if Admiral such-and-such demanded that the RNZAF remove these "heaps of junk" from his airfields and get them to the rear and out of his hair, there could be no argument - they would be moved. The pilots concerned might have felt a bit used and abused when tasked to undertake these flights, as such ferry trips were often sprung on them with little warning, but somebody had to do it, and they were the Johnnies on the spot. Such was the lot of the wartime serviceman.
David D

[jadams]

That's very interesting information, David. Yes, Dad, did transfer across from army - I think artillery, though he often talked about being a truck driver at some point during his service. I must be off the mark with Ray's service record - I've combined his story of catching fire with some other things I've read. Thank you for clearing that up. Is it possible he ferried aircraft, or an aircraft within NZ, during his service? That aspect of the tale was very clear.

Something else I recall from my youth was Dad cramming his family of 7 into a high wing Cessna out of a smaller airport in Melbourne in the late '70s. The aircraft was the property of SIM PNG - Dad was a Presbyterian minister and mum a missionary. Dad sat up front with the missionary pilot and we piled in back like mail sacks. At some point the missionary pilot offered Dad the controls and in taking them he seamlessly threw us into a series of strong banking manouvres as he 'felt' the 'plane. The holistic way he managed that aircraft was quite different - more definite and confident of the boundaries of vigorous flight than the work of the civilian pilot - who was wearing an extremely uncomfortable expression and hanging on tight. Dad had wonderful hands in a car, too, and despite his rather sombre vocation always retained a wee bit of boyish ratbag.

As an illustration of this and the youth of the RNZAF air crews, another story Dad told us involved he and a number of mates - I assume from 24 Squadron - attempting to take off in the airfield ambulance late one night while stationed in the Pacific. Apparently they reached 80mph before the Chevy hit the sand trap and the boys hit the windscreen. A rather battered crew was carpeted before the C.O. the next morning.

I'm not sure if Dad was driving the ambulance but he may have been. He certainly had form. Another tale of youthful exuberance he told us involved himself, a number of his mates from the John McGlashan 6th form, his father's Wolsley (with the engine off) and Baldwin Street... I'm sure he told us the speed the car reached before it crossed North Road and went through the fence on the far side but I've forgotten what it was. When I was reading the Panther Press and saw the words P.O. 'Zombie' Adams I thought - yep, that's Dad's lark all over.

[jadams]

I've had a go through the first of 4 boxes of photos at mum's place - everything is rather mixed up with family photos and unexpectedly large numbers of images of my grandfather and his unit from WW1. On the RNZAF side, so far mostly training photos in NZ - but I did find an official group photo of 24 Squadron, which I'll get digital copies made of for any one who wants them. It was quite a thrill to find a photo of all the boys together - most unexpected. There also seem to be quite a number of informal images of 'planes being serviced, etc.

[davidd]

jadams,
The RNZAF Museum has a copy of the official history of 24 Squadron, which from memory contains many group photographs. So if you are planning to visit Christchurch in the future, do not hesitate to make an appointment.
David D

[barryk]

My name is Barry Kiddle, Norm Kiddle's son. Dad is now advancing in age (92 next week) and has become more in the moment of his war years as he ages. While we are messing around on the computer I pull up the odd thing which gets his memory really going and this site was one of these. As a result he pulled out his photo album in which are many photos of 24 Squadron pilots, Corsairs & groups of pilots (full Sqdn, A & B flights etc). All photos have the names, dates, locations & events written under them (at the time), so will be very accurate. Would any of these be of interest to you?
I am unsure of how to post them here so please let me know if interested & let me know how.
BK.

[Dave Homewood]

YES PLEASE!! We're certainly very interested.

There is a tutorial on how to post photos here, but if you have any questions please just ask. or if worst comes to worst you could email them to me and I can post them on your behalf.

How to post photos....
rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/21596/post-photos-forum-2014-version

[barryk]

Hello Dave,

It would definately be easier for me to send them to you - if you don't mind. Is the email address on here somewhere?

Barry

[Dave Homewood]

Hi Barry, my email is [e-mail]

[davidd]

Just scrolled through this thread once again, and see I have committed a bit of a blue - the personnel list for 24 Sqdn I posted originally shows only the make up for the FIRST tour, whereas the issue of "Panther Press" which started the thread is for the end of the SECOND tour, and nobody else seems to have noticed! Hang on a minute - J Adams DID notice, as his dad wasn't in my list - know he knows why! To make amends, I offer the complete list for tour No. 2 (February to May 1945). The CO, both flight commanders, and the intelligence officer had all been through the first tour, along with 20 other pilots; eight new pilots (marked with * in list, including the two sergeants) were posted in at Ardmore on 15/2/45. However three of these pilots were posted back to Aircrew Pool, Hobsonville, on 2/3/45 - P/O Berryman, P/O Wilson and F/Sgt Walker, reducing squadron to normal establishment of 27 pilots.

Commanding Officer, S/L A G S George, DFC.

OC "A" Flight, F/L R A Martin

OC "B" Flight, F/L V D Rabone

Intelligence Officer, F/O (A/F/L) J Cowan

Squadron Intelligence Clerk, LAC A E Leeves (posted to Sqdn 6/3/45, ex 2 SU, at Guadalcanal.)

"Line" pilots.

* F/O L C Bell
F/O R A Falconer
* F/O D J C Freeman
F/O F W Holmes (Deputy F/Cmdr, A Flight, ex TBF sqdn, later Sir Frank Holmes, economist I think.)
F/O M F Morrissey (Deputy F/Cmdr, B Flight)
* P/O G A Adams (to F/O during tour)
P/O R H Armstrong
P/O C J Berryman (Clarry) (posted out before departure for overseas.)
P/O R A Fowell
P/O J R Hay (to F/O during tour)
P/O L J Wilson (posted out before departure for overseas.)
* F/Sgt M W Boyle
* F/Sgt W C C Crosby (Missing, believed killed 11/4/45.)
F/Sgt A Cunningham (appointed to commission during tour, to P/O w.e.f. 22/1/45.)
* F/Sgt M W Gregory
F/Sgt R H W Griffin
F/Sgt R W Henderson (appointed to commission during tour, on 29/3/45, w.e.f. 22/1/45.)
F/Sgt D N Hepburn
F/Sgt N L Kiddle
F/Sgt J A Knowles (appointed to commission during tour, on ?, w.e.f. 22/1/45.)
F/Sgt L A McLeod
F/Sgt N Rosser
F/Sgt I C S Walker (posted out before departure for overseas.)
F/Sgt R W Weir (appointed to commission during tour, to P/O w.e.f. 22/1/45.)
F/Sgt R M Westrupp
* Sgt L W Clark (To F/Sgt during tour.)
* Sgt J V Westbury (To F/Sgt during tour, on 12/3/45, w.e.f. 28/2/45.)