Postwar RNZAF Cambridge People - Help?

[Dave Homewood]

I plan to add a page to my Cambridge Air Force website that covers people from Cambridge who have served or are serving in the postwar Air Force/s.

I have a list of names of people I know of but nee some help.

- Roger Dahlberg
This is a name of a chap Mum went to schoo, with and she's sure he joined the RNZAF in the late 1950's or 1960's. Does anyone have any ideas about this chap? The spelling may be different.

- Paul Furborough ("Furbs")
He was a F/Sgt at Wigram when I was there and worked on 3 Sqn Detachment Maintenance. I think he was an Aircraft technician but maybe Avionics. I have his Old Friends page anyway.

- Peter Garlick
This chap was a year ahead of me at school and a course behind me at 4TTS. He was becoming an Aircraft Tech from memory, last I heard he was working for Marlborough Aeroclub or some company at Omaka, but can't recall. Any ideas where he is?

- Katie Hogg
Apparently from Cambridge she joined just after me, and later married Steve Knapton who was on my GSTS course. Is she still in the RNZAF? She was a chef or steward, so probably not.

- Dave Gordon Homewood
Me

- Rodney Horton
Aircraft Tech for 20 years. Funnily enough he was at Woodbourne the same time as me, we never met, and years later his nephew became one of my best mates. Small world. Have his details so will follow-up

- Ross Horton
Brother of Rod, still a Chaplain, now at Woody. Have details too.

- Alan Leonard Howard ("Duck")
One of my best mates, we joined together, and still in touch.

- William McMillan
My schoolmate's dad, Bill started as a mechanic, became a flight mechanic and went through an odd scheme where they made him a pilot but retianing his F/Mech position, dual role. He said it was an experimental thing. He went to Vietnam and flew in the war in helicopters. Will try to track him down.

- Peter Pennell
Strike Wing navigator, I've been intouch with Peter already. He flew in Canberras and he took the infamous photo of the first bombs being dropped from an RNZAF Canberra into the jungle in the war against communist terrorists.

- Mike Sterritt
Mike spent his early years in Cambridge and became a helicopter pilot while I was at Wigram. he nd I became great mates when we discovered we were from the same place. I lost touch with him when Wigram closed. is he still in the RNZAF?
- Ray Tocker ("Tick Tock")

- Ray Tocker
An Aucklander but has resided here for years since RNZAF service. Served 24 years as Flight Eng. on Sunderlands and Catalinas. Is the only man to have officially flown from Wellington to Auckland upside down, a record acheived as he hung upside down in the hull of a Sunderland repairing the gash torn in the bottom when it struck Rongotai runway - Wellignton Airport's opening. I know Ray and will interview him soon.

Now, can any ex or serving memebrs add stories about any of these people or their whereabouts?

Also, do you know anyone else who served in the RNZAF and is or was from Cambridge. I know a young pilot attended ANZAC Day here 2 years ago in SD uniform, and it was only after he'd left that someone said he was from here, and he'd only just got his wings a week or so before. So, who from Cambridge graduated as a pilot in April 04?

I also saw a cutting in the local paper some years ago about two locals flying in the same Hercules crew. I ahve a copy but have mislaid it, so when i find it the list will hopefully grow. can you add any more names?

[Dave Homewood]

I have located the cutting mentioned in my last paragraph.

They were not in the same Herc crew as rememebred but are photographed in front of a Herc.

The photo and caption were in the Cambridge Independent newspaper on the 28th of January 1993. The two men were Aircraft Technician, Sgt Michael Mills, and pilot Flt Lt David Wake.

The report marked them boht being awarded the General Service Medal for their work in the Sinai and Kuwait respectively.

Does anyone know these two airmen please? Any info or memories of them would be welcome.

[Dave Homewood]

I have added a basic list of Cambridge postwar Air Force people here on the site

www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Airmen%20post%201945.htm

Eventually I will set up profile pages for all of them just like the WWI and WWII airmen and WAAF's, but at this stage I have only some added links to those with OldFriends accornts. I just found that David Wake is on Old Friends and will contact him in due course.

I added your name too Bruce to the list. Maybe you could write about your experiences in the RNZAF for the site? That'd be cool.

[Bruce]

Michael Mills was on my recruit course R2/90. I also knew his Grandmother as well, a lovely lady. I didnt see Michael much on course because he was in a different flight / Dorm (we were sorted alphabetically).
I guess I could be considered postwar RNZAF even it was only 2 and a bit weeks before I got out of there. I have to say that it was a huge culture shock as I was quite young and had had a fairly quiet and sheltered upbringing. There were a few good bits, but the constant pressure and workload, combined with chronic homesickness basically burnt me out in nothing flat, and as I was getting quite unwell, I opted out. That was just me at the time though, and I sometimes think if I had gone in there a year or so later (after some time in the general workforce) I would have found things a lot easier. I did learn a lot though and the experience wasnt wasted - I just didnt want to know it at the time!
Memories of GSTS Woodbourne:
Learning how to wear in your combat boots by soaking them in water overnight then wearing them as you walk around the airfield. (Good boots too - I took them with me when I left). Polishing the brass window latches, even though the paint was falling of the window frames, and dry rot had set in!. The excellent and extremely deep woodbourne swimming pool - great on hot weekend afternoons. One of the guys in the dorm mumbling after lights out "I want a Beer!" with the reply from our flight"joker" "Then cuddle your pillow instead!"(think teddy bear). Being woken 3 nights in a row with the crash / fire alarm (requiring a full evac to the parade ground). Learning how to strip and reassemble an SLR rifle (NOT a GUN) - I was good at that...
Thats basically my military Career! (wouldnt say I was a veteran!)

[tibor]

bruce said:

Michael Mills was on my recruit course R2/90.

Is it the same Michael Mills as the one Dave said was in the newspaper? If he was on R2/90, he did well to be a sergeant in 1993 and probably unlikely to have been in either Sinai or Kuwait.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Bruce.

I agree with Tibor, even the CT's never advanced that quickly. You can definately see Sgt's stripes in the photo, so the caption isn't wrong. But then if you knew the grandmother of the Michael Mills on your course, could there be two from Cambridge?

He actually looks quite young to be a Sgt in the photo. I wonder if he'd been fast tracked due to some previous training or something, like in an airline? Did that ever happen?

[Bruce]

It would be the same person, but I have no idea how he got to be a sgt so quickly, possibly had some previous training - he was a bit older than I was. His Grandmother often kept me up to date with how he was getting on and did tell me he was deployed overseas, and I think she did mention he had his photo in the paper while over there (I didnt see it, I was working in Auckland at the time). As I said, not sure how he got to that rank, hopefully someone can track him down to fill in the story. (Maybe he borrowed someones flight suit?)

[Dave Homewood]

He's in SD uniform havign just received a medal, so I doubt it's borrowed.

I believe the Sinai deployment of RNZAF staff continues even today (or at least within recent years), but not in as bigger numbers as in the 1980's.

[phil82]

That 'culture shock' on recruit courses is deliberate Bruce; and it doesn't suit everyone.

I joined the RNZAF in London direct from a five-year stint in the RAF which had included two and half years in Kenya starting as an 18-year-old! That was the length of an overseas posting in 1958, 30 months overseas, no phone calls, no nothing.You took the Queen's shilling they said! NZ House in London told us we wouldn't be going on a recruit course but, like all recruiters since Napoleon, they lied. Fortunately, or unfortunately, our arrival at Wigram [there were 15 of us ex-UK recruits] was delayed by the three weeks it took to fly from England, which meant the recruit course was three weeks into the eight weeks when we joined it.

It was a bit of a laugh really. Here we were 15 experienced recruits, thrown in with 15 young Kiwi 18-year-olds who were hugely inexperienced by comparison. In our group, we had people like myself with five years and an overseas tour behind me, and others like me; we had a couple of ex-British Army guys, one ex-RN senior rate, an ex-Royal Marine, and one ex-RAF Regiment. To say the young Kiwis were overawed was an understatement. We won everything of course,,because we were light-years ahead in experience, but servicemen being servicemen, they very quickly applied themselves to teaching the younger guys all the dark arts of being on a 'square-bashing' course. This didn't always go down too well with the GSIs, because I suppose we taught them a few things they didn't want them to know! The instructors for example, claimed no one on a recruit course had ever gained a marksman badge on the rifle range at West Melton, so we proved them wrong by simply telling our ex-army and the Marine to slot one in the bull,and put the next four off the target altogether, and we then filled in the holes on the bull with a biro! They couldn't believe they had gone from no marksman to three on the same course and day.

In those days, recruits were not allowed into the "Wet" [ie, the bar] canteen as it was called, and that instruction presumably included us! We were marching past it one afternoon, and someone, the ex-Royal Marine I suspect, called out "UK Flight: Halt!", and we all peeled off into the bar. Nothing was ever said about it!

Of those 15 ex-UK recruits, one jumped ship and deserted to Australia, never to seen again. two later returned to the UK for family reasons, but all of the other 12 did very well. At least five of them ended up Warrant Officers, and one, myself, a Squadron Leader, so the RNZAF certainly got it's value I would say. Quite a few of them are now dead, but I'm still in touch with the last three survivors.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting stuff Colin.

Eight weeks was a short recruit course. Mind you the wartime course at Levin, and later Rotorua, was three weeks. When I was in the course was 3 months, but my cousin who'd joined in the 1970's had to endue a whole year at GSTS. I thnk they must have included Basic Engineering and other things in that year. I couldn't imagine what life would be like there for a year.

Mind you it's different nowadays. Since about 1992 there's been no more poilishing floors (carpet in the barracks!!) and no more brass window catches (new aluminium window frames...). Young people of today, they don't know they're born.

[phil82]

In the days when Thursday night was "bull" night, that is your rooms had to be cleaned and floors polished etc, I recall a particular Flt Sgt by the name of Gosling [not from Cambridge] who was officiousness personified, so on one day a number of us went to give blood, and on Doctor's orders were lying on our beds when Goosey came to inspect. He left spluttering, but well and truly beaten!

[phil82]

:Eight weeks was a short recruit course"

Well, we were smarter probably.