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Post by corsair5517 on Mar 29, 2023 15:17:53 GMT 12
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Post by corsair5517 on Mar 27, 2023 23:50:48 GMT 12
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Post by corsair5517 on Mar 20, 2023 21:00:54 GMT 12
I’ll work my way through these as they have some resonance for me in that I met a 5 Sqn pilot who had become a firm friend of Dads; Cec was in a care home on the Sunshine Coast, and when Dad visited, he asked if we could detour and visit him. Of course, I agreed and on arrival at the home we were told that Cec was quite vague and we should be prepared for a less-than-perfect visit… none of which bothered Dad a whit. He found his room and bowled in with a hearty “Hey there, Smoky Joe! How’s tricks??” to see the lights go on behind Cecs’ eyes was something I not forget as long as I live!
Their shared experiences, so long ago, were certainly life changing, and at this remove, absolutely life affirming!!
Vale, Cec Downes and Des Stokes!!
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Post by corsair5517 on Jan 11, 2023 23:42:01 GMT 12
Waipara Valley, Dave… had the same problem in South Otago.
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Post by corsair5517 on Jan 11, 2023 23:08:05 GMT 12
One of the banes of my life when I was farming, were small packs of feral dogs during lambing season; at one stage I was sat all night on a hillside overlooking the lambing paddock with a .270 and a very powerful spotlight because the bloody dogs were killing lambs, and ewes… so they’re still out there.
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Post by corsair5517 on Nov 4, 2022 16:29:16 GMT 12
Des Stokes, Flying Officer, NZ4216718, 15Sqn, RNZAF.
Peacefully in his sleep at Yvette Williams at 98 years old.
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Post by corsair5517 on Oct 12, 2022 15:47:41 GMT 12
I assume therefore that you can confirm your Dad is clearly in the photo? If so then think about where he did serve. I only ask if he's in the photo as I have a bunch of wartime photos from my late Uncle's collection when he was an armourer during BoB etc but they aren't all ones he took so it could be a photo he was given. No… Dad didn’t serve in Europe, or on Spitfires. At all. I do know he had a friend who was killed flying Spitfires somewhere in Europe, but that’s all I know…
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Post by corsair5517 on Oct 11, 2022 21:15:18 GMT 12
Miserable bastards, aren’t they?!?
Fixed, chaps…
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Post by corsair5517 on Oct 11, 2022 16:17:08 GMT 12
My fathers' stuff has given us this little gem; ... and given that Dad didn't fly Spitfires, nor did he serve in Europe, we're scratching our heads about this one… 68224404-CDD2-401D-B116-C34C9C5A1A23 by John Stokes, on Flickr Any help would be appreciated...
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Post by corsair5517 on Dec 17, 2021 23:10:35 GMT 12
Two legends in the making: MUS9410110a Group. Pilots course 3a, No. 1 Service Flying Training School, RNZAF Station Wigram. Original negative number WgF1003. L-R: Back; JG Grant, BDJ Kennedy, P Souter, JH Register, MJ Rowland, BRH Sharpe, GK Williams. Middle; JF Barron, AE Lyttle, KCM Miller, JB Starky, LT Weston, JE Wall, JA Ward, PL Stokes. Front; PP O'Brien, AKE MacEwan, WWW Burgess, WG McCullough, RF Watson, RW Taylor. James Fraser Barron, RNZAF NZ401749 (later pathfinder, Wing Commander, DSO & Bar, DFC, DFM) James Allen Ward, RNZAF NZ401793 (later Sgt-pilot and VC) Strike me pink!! That's my uncle - dad's brother, Pat - right end of the middle row! He was seconded to the RAF eventually flying Blenheims and was invalided out of Singapore just before the Japanese invaded... he wound up being ATC on Norfolk Island, and was ATC at Momona post-war. What a find! Thanks to the OP...
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Post by corsair5517 on Dec 16, 2021 13:07:52 GMT 12
😮 Wow!! Yeah, mate… that’s him!
Well done, you!
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Post by corsair5517 on Dec 16, 2021 11:58:33 GMT 12
Thanks, lads… it looks like it was Course 96, which ran from December 43 to May 44, and allowing for a boat ride home after train across Canada, would be about right. Of course, nothing known about Course 96…
I will, of course, check when I can!
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Post by corsair5517 on Dec 15, 2021 22:38:56 GMT 12
Hey up, all…
… is there a website somewhere where the courses of the BCATP at Dunnville are recorded?? I have a request in at No 6 Sqn, RCAF Museum, but am hoping that the records may be online.
I’m asking because my father, Des Stokes 15Sqn turned 98 today, and I know he was top of his course at Dunnville and I’m scrambling to find any record of it… there was a newspaper clipping in his travel trunk, but that has disappeared into the mists of time when he decided that all of his stuff must go… and threw everything out!!
(As it happened, I fortuitously interrupted him at the tail end of this travesty, and rescued his dress blues and the buttons which he’d cut off but alas; the aircraft recognition books, .50” live shells and a whole heap of other stuff had already gone…)
Thanks, fellas
John
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Post by corsair5517 on Feb 10, 2021 13:18:16 GMT 12
Ahhh, but you're a good bunch!!
Thanks ever so much...
... and I wonder if my uncle Pat Stokes knew him; Pat was invalided out of Singapore just before it fell - he was seconded to the RAF on Blenheims there - and was permanently grounded... he was the ATC on Norfolk Is until demob, thence ATC at Momona till his death in the mid 70s.
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Post by corsair5517 on Feb 10, 2021 10:31:02 GMT 12
Hey troops...
I have a chap who is looking to find out about the a/n, an RNZAF pilot in the Solomons 44 & 45.
Can anyone help??
Thanks
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Post by corsair5517 on Dec 4, 2020 8:11:11 GMT 12
I fully understand how this is upsetting; I am something of a disaster area and have previous for breaking pretty much anything vaguely breakable, so finding a repacement pukeko so quickly is a triumph; kudos to the forum!
One of the funniest hunting stories I have is of a pukeko... I was sidling around a swampy part of the farm, looking for something for the pot when I espied a pukeko wandering along, which all of a sudden noticed me and scampered off... it then decided that flight would be more efficacious and took to the wing, only to suffer instant retardation and cessation of flight due to a 7 wire fence that it obviously hadn't noticed!!
I swear that it picked itself up, shook its feathers out... and looked back, over its shoulder in that manner that says "No-one saw that, did they?!?" By now I was fair howling with laughter, and the haughty demeanor of the bird as it stomped off just added to my mirth...
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Post by corsair5517 on Nov 25, 2020 9:46:22 GMT 12
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Post by corsair5517 on Nov 25, 2020 7:50:42 GMT 12
My photo archives have turned this up... southern Cross ODT by John Stokes, on Flickr ... the Pat Stokes that built the model was my uncle, who went on to fly Blenheims for the RAF, and ended up in ATC on Norfolk Island during the war, and after that at Momona.
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Post by corsair5517 on Nov 24, 2020 16:55:56 GMT 12
Was it a long-lived organisation, Dave? I had no idea that Dad was a member, if indeed he was such, and not merely slightly interested.
Is that book of any interest to anyone; I don't really want it and if someone would like it...
I thought the kit was a bit interesting; when you look at what scale modelling is now and what it was in 1945... it's going to a friend of mine in Dunedin who is a very good modeller and who has a sense of history!!
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Post by corsair5517 on Nov 24, 2020 14:30:36 GMT 12
I'm not 100% sure where to put this, but here we go anyway; shift it as you see fit, Dave! My father is now in care - he's 98 in 2 weeks - and stuff like this has come out of the woodwork... DSC_3843 by John Stokes, on Flickr ...August 1990, Journal six. Anyone remember this organisation? Does it still exist? What, I hear you ask, did these brawny, red-blooded 22year olds do during their time in the service in between enagaging with the wily Japanese?? Well, my dad built models... balsa wood models... Got all excited seeing this on the box... ...but alas, it was not a Corsair! I do remember him telling me he'd built one, as well as a Hurricane but they have been lost or binned many years ago now; I suspect they were gifts for younger cousins still in NZ.
However, this was the model in the box... Complete with 70 year old decals! Instruction sheets for a Hurricane and the Mustang as well as a general guide to aeroplane parts and what they do.
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