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Post by isc on Nov 28, 2017 20:56:14 GMT 12
We had one for a short time, then it went, no out cry, public or other wise. It was in use while ZK-AMY was operational. We had some good airshows, and now it's gone. isc
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Nov 28, 2017 21:00:24 GMT 12
I cried out...not repeatable here
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Rumours!
Nov 29, 2017 9:09:30 GMT 12
via mobile
Post by camtech on Nov 29, 2017 9:09:30 GMT 12
Nothing wrong with it though Les, the original thread topic is dead and buried, because (as I said in post number 4) the aircraft is not in the swamp. But the extra topics that have been added on are quite interesting and we're all learning a bit, I hope. While I totally agree, Dave, the thread title is now a tad misleading for a fascinating insight into the current thread topic. But don't let that stop the flow of history being exposed.
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Post by pjw4118 on Nov 29, 2017 10:58:21 GMT 12
Amazing the drift of this thread , old airfields certainly attract plenty of attention as do submarines and spies. To add a little , Dave , the U Boat at Gisborne was in 1945 , just why they were way down here so late in the war seems a mystery. After the boat returned to Singapore the crew remained there until after VJ day. There has been a book published about this .Then theres the intriguing story of the Japanese sub calling into 90 mile beach and recorded in the book about Waipapkauri. With Kaikohe , the Aerodrome branch of the PWD undertook the extension work , the very wide main runway was to allow two landing strips side by side , and the location because it was within the safe range of heavily loaded C47s coming in from the Solomons with wounded. Like Kaitaia it never used to any extent in wartime. But looking south why was a similarly huge airfield built at Haast , and again never used . Locals there say it was to be a secret last redoubt. It must have featured high in the priority list as getting materials there involved running scows up onto the beach and being left there once unloaded. The building effort nationwide was controlled by the PWD who manpowered labour and impounded materials and equipment without notice . With Kaitaia the PWD supervisor called at the local contractors , impounded all of there equipment all timber and materials even sand , and gave the order to be up on the site at 8 am the next day. I have read that the delays in building Stoney Batter were because of cement shortages , certainly there was no allocation for any private use as defense works used it all. Imagine that type of organisation today today , Aucklands "housing shortage" would be solved in 6 months except people today wouldnt live in transit camps as they did in the late 1940s and 50s.
And back on thread , I dont know where the Corsair is .
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 29, 2017 11:56:08 GMT 12
To add a little, Dave, the U Boat at Gisborne was in 1945 , just why they were way down here so late in the war seems a mystery. After the boat returned to Singapore the crew remained there until after VJ day. There has been a book published about this. The book is “ U-boat in New Zealand Waters — U862's War Patrol off Gisborne and Napier in 1945” by Gerald Shone. I've got a copy. The U-boat visited Gisborne about a month after all the shore defences were removed. After spending some time out in Poverty Bay unsuccessfully looking for ships, they entered the Gisborne Harbour Basin at night, running with their electric motors on the surface. The 'boat was so close to the diversion wall that the crew could hear the chat from the freezing workers who were arriving in the wee hours of the morning to work in the freezer chambers. They made it right into the inner harbour basin, bus as there were no ships there, they reversed out of the port stern-first, but became stuck on a sandbank for a couple of hours until the rising tide allowed them to escape. During the time they were stuck there, they could have opened up on the town of Gisborne with their deck gun but chose to not reveal their presence and made good their escape. A few days later, the U-boat fired a torpedo at a ship departing from the Port of Napier, but the torpedo missed and they didn't press home the attack, fearing they had been seen from the shore.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 29, 2017 14:24:00 GMT 12
Nope, that is not the book i have. Mine is called "U-Boat Far From Home" by David Stevens. For some reason i was thinking it was written by the captain, but I think he also wrote a book.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 29, 2017 14:38:07 GMT 12
Due to the comments about thread drift on the Corsair thread I have merged the entire thread into this "Rumours" thread. It's a good read this thread and I think most of what was discussed in the recent Corsair thread fits well here.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 29, 2017 14:46:25 GMT 12
Now that really fascinates me, Dave, that two separate books have been written about U862 in New Zealand waters. I've just searched for your book and new copies are available to purchase from Amazon. And there could even be a third book written by the captain? Amazing.
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Post by exkiwiforces on Nov 29, 2017 15:32:55 GMT 12
Now that really fascinates me, Dave, that two separate books have been written about U862 in New Zealand waters. I've just searched for your book and new copies are available to purchase from Amazon. And there could even be a third book written by the captain? Amazing. Yes, there is a third book based/ using the Log Book from the Captain of that U-Boat. As I’ve seen it either here in Fieldings Paper Plus Bookshop or up in the museum shop at the NZ Army Museum on Sunday on the way home from 100th anniversary of the Battle of Cambrai reunion held at Waiouru on the weekend just gone. I haven’t brought it as have a few books to take back to Oz already including one coming in at 3kilos at A4 size.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 29, 2017 15:46:22 GMT 12
Did you know the U-boat itself almost got to be preserved here in New Zealand, but it never happened because the RNZAF put the kibosh on it, and it ended up scuttled.
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Post by pjw4118 on Nov 29, 2017 16:44:49 GMT 12
But what happened to the people on 90 mile beach signalling the Japanese submarine ?
And how was the Soviet submarine detaected passing through Cook Strait many years ago , but in Orion days .
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Post by camtech on Nov 29, 2017 21:02:47 GMT 12
I have a whole bunch of newspaper cuttings regarding the Russian sub - will have to dig them out and check, unless one of our resident sleuths beats me to it.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 30, 2017 17:43:00 GMT 12
Was that about 1990?
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Post by camtech on Dec 1, 2017 13:56:58 GMT 12
Sounds about right.
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Post by Brenton on Dec 10, 2017 15:12:27 GMT 12
Whilst flying my RC plane at the Kaikohe airfield today, I was talking with George, who flew many planes during his working life ranging from Tiger Moths though DC3's to DC8's etc. He was flying for Air NZ when the Erebus disaster occurred. He was Peter Rowley's first instructor as well. He told me that he remembers when the 'Yanks' buried all their surplus gear. In a valley next to the strip. He remembers because he wondered at the time weather he should go back with a digger and dig it all up again. Of course he never did. He did have a piece of paper with the locations marked on it but..... he doesn't know what happened to it. OK ... so maybe he is confused with some other place ... but ? He has many stories ... he remembers sitting in the cockpit of a Corsair parked at Rukuhia for example. Back to Kaikohe he tells me the Yanks used the Kaikohe strip for their B17's. This is where they did their practice flights and then they moved up to Kaitaia to load up and fly off to the islands. Well .... I don't know ? Maybe ? I repeat this just because he's not lying to me.This is how he remembers it either first hand or as told to him. One other thing ... if you Google Whites Aviation photos and search Kaikohe Northland College you will find some good shots taken just after the war. It seems pretty obvious which buildings made up the Military Hospital. I would post one or two here but don't know how to.
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Dec 10, 2017 17:05:00 GMT 12
Cheers Brenton! What type RC plane were you flying?
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Post by Brenton on Dec 10, 2017 22:04:47 GMT 12
Nothing to fancy or difficult to fly. Today just my modified Calmato. It has retracts , flaps, and is now a tail dragger. I presume you fly RC as well John ?
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Dec 11, 2017 6:34:51 GMT 12
No, I used to. I prefer 1:1 now. I take an interest in anything scaled though
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 12, 2017 13:10:58 GMT 12
Back to the rumours, does anyone know why the US troops may have gone all the way up to Kaikohe to dump stuff? Was there a camp up there? I know they dumped stuff in lakes and holes in other parts of the North Island, if rumours are to be believed.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 12, 2017 16:11:13 GMT 12
New Zealand is full of rumours about the Yanks. When I lived in Gisborne for 20½ years, there were people up there who swore on their dead mothers that the Yanks had offered to build a four-lane highway over the Gentle Annie road to Tiniroto ( ?? why would the Yanks be interested in building a four-lane highway into the middle of nowhere?); that they had also offered to build a 9-mile-long rail tunnel between Matawai and the Waioeka Gorge (the difference in altitude between Matawai and the gorge over the distance between the two would have meant that the gradient would have been so steep that trains wouldn't have been able to climb it and wouldn't have been able to safely brake down it); that the Yanks were going to build a decent highway up the East Coast with a deep water port at Hicks Bay (what possible use that would have been escapes me); then after I moved down to Wairarapa in the late-1990s, I started hearing rumours about all the huge, totally useless to them, projects the Yanks were going to build down here; plus the numerous rumours in Hawke's Bay where I grew up about all the weird & wonderful projects the Yanks had offered to build during WWII; one really has to wonder what sort of delusional imbeciles actually dreamed up all those weird & wonderful offers. I don't doubt there are similar rumours all over New Zealand about what the Yanks offered to build during WWII. You really have to wonder about the gullibility of people who continue to spout off about those rumours, that they heard about from somebody way back in the past, yet when pressed, they cannot remember where they heard it, or who they heard it from.
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