New Zealanders in th Fleet Air Arm DVD

[Dave Homewood]

I have mentioned a few times on the forum here about this film project that I am working on but I don't think I have posted much information here yet, and since I have just posted the below to a Navy forum seeking photos, etc, I thought I should copy it here.

One of the projects I am currently working on is I have been travelling around New Zealand meeting and filming interviews with people who flew in or served in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm in WWII. Wow, what remarkable stories most of these chaps have, they are simply wondeful people.

There are sadly very few of these chaps left (there were not many of them in the first place, apparently around 1200 New Zealanders joined the FAA between 1940-45, and around 800 of them got onto front line operational flying. According to the NZ FAA Association only around 27 operational FAA pilots or aircrew members are still alive.

I have been lucky to meet and film interviews with the following people:

Operational Combat Aircrew
Ray Richards - Fighter Pilot - Corsairs
Bob Glading - Fighter Pilot - Corsairs
Derek 'Podge' Morten - Fighter Pilot - Corsairs
Ben Heffer - Fighter Pilot - Corsairs
George Rawstron - Fighter Pilot - Corsairs
Ian Darby - Observer - Fireflies, POW
Murray Richardson - Observer - Swordfish, Albacore, Fulmar, Mosquito
Bill Miles - Fighter Pilot - Seafires
Lex Aspinall- Fighter Pilot - Seafires
Nelson Tolerton - Fighter Pilot - Hellcats
Don Nairn- Fighter Pilot - Martlets, then developed aircraft such as Corsair
Ralph Cocklin - TSR pilot - Swordfish on Macships
Moray Wilson - TSR pilot - Swordfish and Barracuda
Sandy Brunt - TSR pilot - Albacore
Syd Vincent - Telegrapher Air Gunner - Avengers
Fred Hall - Telegrapher Air Gunner - Walrus, then Sqn Adjutant on Carrier

RNZAF veterans who did work with FAA
The late Eric Ford - flight mechanic on HMNZS Achilles for Walrus
Don Mackenzie - RNZAF based with RAF unit at Trincomalee, flew FAA Swordfish on occasiosn and was flying during Easter 1942 attacks

Others
Alec Falconer - Pilot under training when war ended
Gordon Budd - Seafire Pilot under training when war ended
Phil Warring - Pilot under training when war ended
Don Mander - Seafire Pilot under training when war ended
The late Dave Allison - Corsair Pilot under training when war ended
The late Dr Doug Cummack - Radar officer on carrier
Kath Townsend - widow of FAA pilot and co-creator of Fleet Air Arm Museum of New Zealand

I hope I have not forgotten anyone. I have a few more leads that I hope to get to film if I can find the budget in time, and then it will be the major job of beginning to edit this stuff together into some sort of watchable form. There are so many stories that I think it will make a very interesting and quite long film. I will probably break the stories up into episodes, perhaps based around the following:
- Joining up and training
- Mediterranean and Egypt
- Convoys - Russian and Atlantic
- Indian Ocean and Pacific

The plan is to release this as a DVD in the future. My reason for posting this here is to see if any of you out there might have further leads taht might help me find:
- Other New Zealanders who flew in the Fleet Air Arm to film
- Any ideas which might help fund this film, as it is strictly very low budget and I'm now skint, but still determined to see it through as it's important
- Any photos that might help illustrate the film

Regarding photos, sadly I don't think that there would be any/much film footage from the war that depicts New Zealanders in the Fleet air Arm at all. There would undoubtedly be British film in archives but right now i have no way of funding the necessary fees for rights to us any representative film. So I will be largely relying upon photos to show what the men are talking about. I have been collecting a number of photos from the various interviewees but not all of them have photos of course.

If you have any nice clear, sharp photos of FAA aircraft, carriers, bases, New Zealanders in the FAA or anything else that you think might be of use, I would love to get a nice large scan please.

I am particularly interested in getting some wartime photos of HMS/HMNZS Philomel, Devonport, and HMS/HMNZS Tamaki, Motuihe Island, if possible as most of thse guys joined up at Philomel and did their initial training at Tamaki before heading to the UK. And any photos of HMS St Vincent, the training school all these chaps went through on arrival in the UK, would be wonderful too. All of them talk about Philomel and St Vincent but I have no decent photos of these places.

To be honest I am not certain where HMS Philomel was back then, is that the main RNZN base at Devonport or was it off-site? (sorry, I'm ex-RNZAF and don't know too much about our Navy but I'm learning a lot).

My email is [e-mail] - Thanks for reading this.

Cheers
Dave

[hermithill]

Hi Dave, I know this post was a while ago but I would be very interested to see the video of Lex Aspinall of whom you interviewed several years ago. I have in my collection his uniform and maps and would love to have the opportunity to hear his story in his own words.
Kindest regards
Garth Butson

[Dave Homewood]

The project was put on hold and has not yet been completed. One day...