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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 12, 2017 21:32:33 GMT 12
This is from the NEW ZEALAND HERALD, dated 17 NOVEMBER 1944   |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 14, 2017 1:52:37 GMT 12
Here's a photo i have never seen before. Is this the Snake Gully Camp? Or is it Palmerston Street? Both camps were near bridges.   |
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Post by camtech on Jul 14, 2017 13:09:40 GMT 12
My late wife's parents (and her) lived in transit flats when they returned from Fiji in 1949, so I wonder if this was still going then?
Unfortunately, the only survivor is my mother in law, who suffers from dementia.
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leigh
Leading Aircraftman
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Post by leigh on Sept 4, 2017 0:30:35 GMT 12
My Dad Anthony (Tony) Lewis was and MTSO engineer and Flight Lieutenant in the islands in WW2. He was at Velalavella (sp), Bougainville , Guadalcanal.
He also went to a base called Lukaville.
We have been trying to find out where that was. We think it was around Auckland. Not sure if it was the name of a barracks. Any ideas? I have dodo searched the island for it since it sounds as tho it would fit up there. But he said he went to Lukaville to leave for the islands.
Any help you if your members could give here would be greatly appreciated.
My contact details
ianleigh@vodafone.co.nz
0211524813
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 4, 2017 3:08:53 GMT 12
Hi Leigh, I replied to your PM the other day with details of where this was. Did you get my reply? I wrote:
Hi Leigh, I am not surprised you have had trouble finding where that was. Lucaville was an accommodation camp made up of huts where the members of No. 1 Squadron and others based at Whenuapai were accommodated. It was apparently on the south-eastern edge of Whenuapai airfield around about where the golf course is now, and perhaps more towards the gully where the road goes through. It was named after their CO at the time it opened, S/Ldr Fred 'Popeye' Lucas, I believe.
The Air Force had other dispersed camps at other airfields too, often with fun names like Snake Gully, Siberia, and the likes, now all but forgotten.
Cheers,
Dave
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 4, 2017 12:38:16 GMT 12
Actually cancel the above, I just spoke with WWII veteran Ron Hildreth who was with No. 16 Squadron and No. 4 Servicing Unit, and he said when the squadron moved from Fairhall to Whenuapai where they got their new P-40's they were living in Lucaville, and it was on the northern end of the runway but the the left (so west) in the swamp, he says. He said it went down into a bit of a hollow and there were a few homes down there as well as the camp, and also the wing of the USAAF B-24 that crashed with all the Japanese diplomats onboard was still there when he was in Lucaville. So the camp was on the opposite side of the airfield from where I was thinking, on the north-western side. Ron said a dirt road went down to the camp, so I wonder looking at Google Maps if that is McKean Road?
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Post by davidd on Sept 11, 2017 12:03:05 GMT 12
No Japanese diplomats aboard that Liberator Dave, they were interned Japanese and Thai civilians, including a number of children. Incidentally I have wondered about that camp Lucaville for a long time, so now I can see that hoping to find it in wartime newspapers was a forlorn hope; absolutely nothing turned up apart from one obscure entry, which did not help very much at all.
Dave D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 11, 2017 14:02:10 GMT 12
Thanks David, for some reason I was thinking they were Embassy staff.
I have spoken with a few people over the years who were living in Lucaville. I don't remember who but someone did give me the impression there was a hutted camp somewhere between where the golf course is now and Brigham Creek Road, so I was thinking that was Lucaville till i spoke with Ron the other day. It may have been duff info but I wonder if there was a second camp there too. Often the larger stations did have more than one hutted camp outlying.
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Post by planewriting on Jun 29, 2020 17:11:52 GMT 12
I have received the following email today however the sender has not named her father-in-law. Can anyone enlighten me as to location and any other details which you may help this lady with her project. Thanks in advance for assistance.
"My 99 year old father-in-law was in the RNZAF from July 1943 and I started writing up his war history during the lockdown. He was stationed at the No. 303 Elementary Ground Training School (EGTS) at Mt Maunganui from late August to October 1943 but I have been unable to locate any information on the school.
He doesn't recall where the camp was but it wasn't at the aerodrome. They were at No. 1 Camp or "Cactus City" and they had to walk about a mile or so from their huts to the mess hall and got very dusty. He remembers crossing 3 roads to get to the beach. They took the ferry across to Tauranga to play rugby and the camp was plagued by mosquitoes. It was cleared of all but the 29 of his flight in early September 1943 when 381 men came back from New Caledonia so it must have been a reasonable size to hold over 400 men. A couple of his photos have trees in the background so it must have been close to these rather than being completely in the open.
I would be most grateful for any information you may have about the EGTS but particularly where it was located. If you are unable to help, could you please suggest someone in the Tauranga area who may know.
Thank you for your help
Kind regards
Alison Smith"
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 29, 2020 17:24:33 GMT 12
Yes I received the same query last week but I was unable to help and suggested your museum.
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Post by tbf25o4 on Jun 30, 2020 9:36:14 GMT 12
Dave, the air force museum has some aerial photos of the Tauranga station taken around the same time, and I can recall seeing huts located some way off the airfield, and if memory is correct
towards the Mount parallel to the then main road into the Mount
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Post by davidd on Jun 30, 2020 9:43:01 GMT 12
No. 303 Elementary Ground Training Squadron (NOT SCHOOL!) was at "Tauranga" and was in existence from time of its redesignation from the original No. 211 Aerodrome Defence Squadron on 15th March of 1943. For some reason, No. 303 was the largest of all the seven EGTS's, with a strength of 400 trainees (all others had 200), and it was also one of the last to be disbanded (along with No. 300 EGTS at New Plymouth), on 20th December 1943.
The location of No. 211 ADS (originally formed as the RNZAF Station Tauranga Aerodrome Defence Unit [ADU] in July 1942, renamed as No. 211 Aerodrome Defence Squadron [ADS] as from 28th August 1942) must have been in the general vicinity of the Tauranga aerodrome - it should be possible to pinpoint where if you can locate a wartime map of the aerodrome in a NZ Air Pilot (official publication). There were about 19 ADU's (later Aerodrome Defence Squadrons) formed from July 1942 onwards, and when the whole scheme was re-organised in March of 1943 there was a reduction in number of units, to seven EGTS's (Nos. 301 - 307), three Advanced Ground Training Squadrons (308 to 310), all located at various aerodromes around the country, and two Electrical & Wireless Training Squadrons (311 and 312, for wireless, radar and electrical tradesmen, who all had to learn about physics for the first time in their young lives!), both located at Wigram. The original primary purpose for these units was actually to guard the aerodromes in case of invasion, but they had an even more important secondary function, to bring the educational standards of all unit members up to a level sufficient for them to be able to commence the Aircrew training syllabus (and also the radio/radar/electrical tradesmen). When the threat of imminent invasion finally ceased in about March 1943, these squadrons were reorganised into a pure educational training system for Aircrew (and to a lesser extent, Radio trades trainees).
A good proportion of NZ's population had not attended secondary school during the early 1930s (the Great Depression) and this was the only way that the RNZAF could get trainees of the required standard to undertake advanced aircrew studies - they built their own education system with a large group of trained teachers transferred from the Education Department to the RNZAF as Education Officers. This system continued to the end of the war, but the scattered locations of the EGTS's, AGTS's etc were supplanted by a streamlined, centralised system including an Elementary Training Wing and an Advanced Training Wing located at the Delta, later both transferred to Taieri in late 1944.
David D
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Post by planewriting on Jun 30, 2020 11:21:45 GMT 12
Thank you David (Duxbury). I will alert Alison Smith (the inquirer) to your above post about her father-in-law Jack Smith.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 22, 2020 14:37:30 GMT 12
Archives New Zealand has a file called "Works - RNZAF [Royal NZ Air Force] Minor Stations, Accommodation and Works Services - Paeroa" dated 1945 - 1978. www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=20383146Is there an airfield at Paeroa? If yes, what road/street is it on? I assume it was simply a landing ground for the RNZAF, nothing actually based there? |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 22, 2020 14:54:01 GMT 12
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Post by shorty on Nov 22, 2020 15:11:58 GMT 12
Would Southbridge be something to do with the fuel depot being built there?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 22, 2020 17:36:33 GMT 12
I wondered that too, but it is not on the list of 17 Air Reserve tanks.
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Post by thebrads on Nov 22, 2020 19:20:06 GMT 12
Archives New Zealand has a file called "Works - RNZAF [Royal NZ Air Force] Minor Stations, Accommodation and Works Services - Paeroa" dated 1945 - 1978. www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=20383146Is there an airfield at Paeroa? If yes, what road/street is it on? I assume it was simply a landing ground for the RNZAF, nothing actually based there? Grew up there. No RNZAF airfield that I am aware of. Can't even think of any airfields close to town, other than a few top dressing strips up on hillsides. The only thing like i knew of similar was a small army depot, maybe this was RNZAF prior. |
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Post by pjw4118 on Dec 3, 2020 16:12:45 GMT 12
I agree, the closest airfields are Thames, Waharoa or Waihi Beach ( not wartime ) perhaps a drill hall for the ATC ?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 3, 2020 17:04:30 GMT 12
Could there have been a secret Radar installation there at Paeroa as part of the air defence system?
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