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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 20, 2010 16:33:47 GMT 12
No, but I assume in Britain they were Mk I's. Not sure about when the unit went to Burma.
I cannot lay my hands on the Portrait of an Air Force book now, not sure where it has gone. Can someone out there check their copy please?
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Post by shorty on Jun 27, 2010 19:58:32 GMT 12
Waco YKC AX695 ("The Little Waco") and Capt Dick Lawson, M.O. with the LRDG
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 27, 2010 20:27:39 GMT 12
Great stuff, thanks Shorty!!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 30, 2010 16:14:18 GMT 12
I have realised an error here, earlier when I typed about No. 58 Squadron it was a typo, it should read No. 258 Squadron. My apologies.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 30, 2010 16:27:04 GMT 12
By the way I have located my copy of Portrait of an Air Force at last, which was on the shelf the whole time but just eluding my previous searches. Sadly I got the squadron wrong but there is indeed a photo of pilot Sergeant G.A. Williams sitting in a Hurricane that has a marking that shows a black shield with a silver fern, the letters N.Z. and a cutlass passing through it. You can see the word 'PILOT' and obviously his name was below that. Williams shot down a Japanese aircrfat on the 23rd of December 1941, the caption states. His squadron was No. 67 Squadron, another unit that had a lot of kiwis amongst it, including Geoff Fisken in its slighly earlier Buffalo days.
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Post by beagle on Jun 30, 2010 17:20:38 GMT 12
ya mean this shot
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 30, 2010 18:22:54 GMT 12
that's it, thanks.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 17, 2010 22:08:04 GMT 12
Just an aside to this discussion, looking at the official History of the NZ Artillery units in WWII, it seems a few squadrons worked alongside them for artillery spotting duties, known as Air Observation Post (or Air OP) Squadrons. The OH mentions both No. 651 Air OP Squadron and No. 655 Air OP Squadron. There's even a photo of an Air OP aircraft - not sure what it is, Auster maybe? www.nzetc.org/etexts/WH2Arti/WH2Art092b.jpgI wonder if kiwis flew in these squadrons with the kiwi artillery? One of the infantry guys I interviewed said the artillery used Piper Cubs to overfly Cassino and Monte Cassino throughout the battle to spot targets. Would that have been RAF or USAAF?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 21, 2010 3:37:14 GMT 12
I had not realised before (most of you probably did0 but the chap in the middle has pilots wings, so he seems to be a Sergeant-Pilot. I don't know if he is Air Force or Army, but he seems to have the New Zealand tags on his epilets (in NZ Army fashion rather than on the shoulder sleeve as the RNZAF woud have). How many Army pilots would the NZEF have had in WWII? If any? [/quote]
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