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Post by chinapilot on Oct 18, 2010 9:36:47 GMT 12
Heard that Brian has been made a Life Member and really good to hear that Rhonda Fraser is still around...
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Post by chinapilot on Oct 9, 2010 21:01:01 GMT 12
In the old days it used be a CPL and a ATPL .. Prob makes the customer feel good though...
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Post by chinapilot on Sept 29, 2010 7:33:32 GMT 12
You are doing a great job there Dave !!
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Post by chinapilot on Sept 28, 2010 20:59:02 GMT 12
Thanks Errol...thought they may have drowned as the ditching looked successful. It's a windswept coast with hundreds of ships lost there also. Could be the one, angelsonefive, although there seems to be other Henley ditchings mentioned in the booklet but no details of survivors. Ian
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Post by chinapilot on Sept 27, 2010 21:41:10 GMT 12
Many small booklets are published in the UK and just happened to notice in one that a Kiwi, Roderick Campbell Mathieson, engaged in the unglamourous work of target towing was killed along with his target operator after ditching near Bude [Cornwall] in a Hawker Henley. 1.4.1940 Another unsung Kiwi... Very spectacular coastline which extends up to Hartland Point with very large waves breaking on the cliffs at high tide.
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Post by chinapilot on Sept 15, 2010 8:22:22 GMT 12
Just reading 'Panther Soup'...about the other 'invasion' through the south of France...by Nov '44 it was estimated there were 17,000 US 'deserters' in Paris and surrounds and this doubled during the 'Battle of the Bulge'...
Before anyone makes anti American comments,"To the Victor the Spoils' had the number of UK/Canadian deserters in double figures at that time also...
Re retreats, Kippenberger's "Stand for New Zealand!!" certainly seemed to have stopped one in Crete...[not that it was much use in the scheme of things..]
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 22, 2010 4:13:31 GMT 12
Picked up his book "The Happy Hunted" in a second hand bookshop...
Disappointing at first as it's just lunches with other officers etc but then gets into the nitty gritty...getting captured,escaping, recaptured and then meeting Rommel and defending NZ's reputation as R told him they were gangsters...
Great read.
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 18, 2010 2:10:37 GMT 12
Had lunch a few weeks ago with an English guy who witnessed the NZ bayonet charge at Maleme...
One of his most vivid memories is stacks of Tommy guns on a wharve but no ammunition for them...another was a Ju52 shot down just in front of him and running over to it giving the survivors a quick squirt...
A good novel which is partly about Crete is 'Talking About O'Dywer' by NZ author C.K. Stead...
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 16, 2010 2:17:23 GMT 12
Article on him with photo in the Sept FLYPAST about his downing of a Me210 6.9.42
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 14, 2010 23:49:44 GMT 12
Just saw this...away for so long that I didn't know there had been some controversy a few years back...
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 14, 2010 23:11:57 GMT 12
Found this about Kiwis in 'Z Force'....
"...During the southern winter of 1944 twenty-two New Zealand soldiers, based at Trentham Military Camp, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Wellington, New Zealand were sent to train with Z Special Unit in Melbourne, Australia.
From there, they made their way to Fraser Commando School, on Fraser Island, Queensland, to be trained in using parachutes, unarmed combat, explosives and the Malay language. Four New Zealanders were killed during operations in Borneo.
Major Stott and Captain McMillan were both presumed drowned in heavy seas while going ashore in a rubber boat from the submarine USS Perch (SS-313) in Balikpapan Bay on 20 March 1945. Their bodies were never found.
Warrant Officer Houghton made it to shore in a second boat but was captured ten days later and languished in Balikpapan Prison where he died of beriberi about 20 April 1945.
Signalman Ernie Myers parachuted into enemy-held territory near Mount Mentawir on 30 March 1945, but landed with two other operatives inside a Japanese camp area. They resisted strongly, but the Australian in the party was killed and Myers was captured along with the Malay interpreter of the group. Both men were tortured for three days, before being beheaded.
Their bodies were recovered soon after the Japanese surrender when Lieutenant Bob Tapper, another New Zealander who was working with the War Graves Commission, discovered their remains. Evidence given to the commission by native witnesses ensured that the Japanese involved paid the penalty for this atrocity..."
Respect.
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 14, 2010 22:35:47 GMT 12
Many NZ light aircraft had 'Aviation Radio' made by him especially if it was an HF [eg Mt Cook Skiplanes]. I'm sure you know two sons went on to aviation careers.
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 14, 2010 5:17:34 GMT 12
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 14, 2010 2:28:37 GMT 12
Fantastic..thanks for posting. Learnt to swim at Evans Bay/Hataitai Beach..remember swimming out to the Sunderlands that use to moor there sometimes in the late '50s... Later used to go to the Air Training Corps at the old Teal terminal...
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 8, 2010 5:45:01 GMT 12
Great finds Dave...keep them coming!
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 7, 2010 21:58:10 GMT 12
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 7, 2010 21:26:23 GMT 12
westland831...think you are right - the area around the bridge looks like the place - thanks!
BTW were you the kid sitting there? :-)
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 7, 2010 21:11:58 GMT 12
Great stuff...
Respect.
Only lived to 40 after all that...bummer
Burma is indeed the Forgotten War...one of the few places in WWII where many of the 'locals' were hostile to shot down airmen, either handing them directly to the japs or killing them themselves. Survival in the infamous Rangoon POW camp was iffy also.
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 6, 2010 20:10:43 GMT 12
Very poignant to see the serial number so clearly...
I lived in New Ireland for a year in the '70s but didn't know anything about RNZAF losses there. Nearly every beach on the SE coast had a radial engine on it which according to local legend was the result of a formation of Zeros heading to Rabaul from Truk who got lost and force landed where they could.
One tragedy was played out on a beach just a few miles south of where I was...a B-24 ditched just off the shore and the survivors made it to the beach, were spotted and photgraphed by a search aircraft the next day but there was a cock up with communication and the 'Dumbo' that was standing by was never sent. Eventually captured the survivors were murdered in Rabaul except for the commander who was a Colonel and had been sent to Japan.
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Post by chinapilot on Aug 6, 2010 8:00:19 GMT 12
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