Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 2, 2011 23:28:41 GMT 12
Bob Metcalf, 89, revisits WWII Harvard cockpit
Jamie Morton | 8th January 2011
Bob Metcalf was 24, dark-haired and fighting fit the last time he sat behind the control stick of a Harvard trainer plane.
But yesterday, it took Mr Metcalf a little longer to climb into the cockpit of the aircraft that prepared him for combat as a young man during World War II.
The former Navy pilot from Wellington, who turns 90 next month, was taken for a thrill-filled flight over Tauranga by Classic Flyers chief executive Andrew Gormlie as a present from his Tauranga-based family.
Before taking off at Tauranga Airport, Mr Gormlie asked his passenger if he was up for a spot of upside-down aerobatics.
"I don't mind ..." Mr Metcalf replied, as he got into his flight suit, "as long as I don't fall out."
Mr Metcalf told the Bay of Plenty Times how the experience took him back to October 1944 in Canada, when he was training to go to war.
Three years earlier, he and a mate had signed up for service with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm.
He spent the following years training at various schools in Scotland, England and Canada, before eventually joining 1851 Squadron.
In 1945, his squadron was preparing for the invasion of Truk - the main base of Japan's empire in the South Pacific - but the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to a close before Mr Metcalf had a chance to experience combat.
"We spent so much time waiting to go, but in the end it probably wasn't a bad thing that I didn't see action."
www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/local/news/bob-metcalf-89-revisits-wwii-harvard-cockpit/3936310/
See Photo Gallery Here
www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/galleries/wwii-pilot-bob-metcalfe-in-action/175/
Jamie Morton | 8th January 2011
Bob Metcalf was 24, dark-haired and fighting fit the last time he sat behind the control stick of a Harvard trainer plane.
But yesterday, it took Mr Metcalf a little longer to climb into the cockpit of the aircraft that prepared him for combat as a young man during World War II.
The former Navy pilot from Wellington, who turns 90 next month, was taken for a thrill-filled flight over Tauranga by Classic Flyers chief executive Andrew Gormlie as a present from his Tauranga-based family.
Before taking off at Tauranga Airport, Mr Gormlie asked his passenger if he was up for a spot of upside-down aerobatics.
"I don't mind ..." Mr Metcalf replied, as he got into his flight suit, "as long as I don't fall out."
Mr Metcalf told the Bay of Plenty Times how the experience took him back to October 1944 in Canada, when he was training to go to war.
Three years earlier, he and a mate had signed up for service with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm.
He spent the following years training at various schools in Scotland, England and Canada, before eventually joining 1851 Squadron.
In 1945, his squadron was preparing for the invasion of Truk - the main base of Japan's empire in the South Pacific - but the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to a close before Mr Metcalf had a chance to experience combat.
"We spent so much time waiting to go, but in the end it probably wasn't a bad thing that I didn't see action."
www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/local/news/bob-metcalf-89-revisits-wwii-harvard-cockpit/3936310/
See Photo Gallery Here
www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/galleries/wwii-pilot-bob-metcalfe-in-action/175/
