1930's New Zealand Fighter Pilot Reunions!!

[Dave Homewood]

Today while researching through 1937 and 1938 issues of the New Zealand Herald for info for my book I made these amazing discoveries. Two reports detailing very early New Zealand Fighter pilots reunions, one in 1937 and the other 1938! I had no idea such reunions occurred that early in NZ.

Of more interest to me is the mention of three men from Cambridge! (My home town and subject of my Air Force website)

Keith Caldwell I knew all about, he lived here for several years with his family who had a home here (and another in Auckland) before, during and after WWI. he was NZ's top ace in WWI.

Tommy Hampshire I knew was in the WWI Air Force only because his headstone indicates this. Now I know he was a pilot. Brilliant. He was for many years the secretary of the Cambridge Returned Soldiers' Association too.

Arthur Broadhurst is a man I know little of. I know he founded and was the first principal of St Peters School here in Cambridge, one of NZ's more prestigous boarding high schools. I have been told he had a DH60 Moth in the 1930's but cannot find any record of him owning one. Several local older people however have said he used to fly it from the school fields and it was red. Now I discover he too was a wartime WWI pilot. Brilliant.

Sorry that these are not the best copies, they're digitally photographed from a microfilm reader with a dirty screen. I've cut each into two bits so Photobucket doesn't shrink them too much.

1937
From the New Zealand Herald dated 23rd of August 1937




1938
From the New Zealand Herald dated 7th of June 1938

[Dave Homewood]

Here's another report from the 7th of June 1938:

Note the name of their organisation! The New Zealand War Birds Association!

[Dave Homewood]

I got a chance today to look up further newspapers and sure enough there was a 1939 reunion, but not surprisingly there was none in 1940 as the President, Keith Caldwell, and no doubt other memebrs, were back in the Air Force by then serving their country once more.

The brilliant thing is the 1939 edition had a photo too!! It appeared in the NZ Herald and later in the week in the Weekly News.

Here's the Herald report from the 5th of June 1939:



And the photo of the original New Zealand War Birds Association. Recognise any other faces?

[Dave Homewood]

I wonder if the memorial was ever made, and if so where it ended up. Is it in the Auckland War Memorial Museum perhaps?