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Post by Dave Homewood on May 23, 2020 21:34:49 GMT 12
DUTCH ORPHAN BABY
STORY OF ADOPTION BY N.Z. AIRMAN
LONDON, February 18,
A two-year-old baby Dutch girl clutching a piece of paper was among 500 Dutch children who reached England from Holland last week. The paper in the child's hand contained only the name and address of a New Zealand bomber navigator, Flying Officer Owen Pratt, who is recovering from injuries at an R.A.F. rehabilitation centre, says the "Sunday Express."
Pratt's bomber was shot down last autumn over Holland. He bailed out, but escaped from the Germans because a Dutchman and his wife sheltered him. During his concealment the airman played a great deal with the couple's baby daughter. They became fast friends. Later he escaped to England through the underground movement.
Pratt has now learned that the Dutch couple saved his life at the cost of their own. The Germans shot them when it was discovered that they had been hiding a British airman, but the neighbours knew the secret of Pratt's stay there, and gave the baby a note which she brought to England.
The airman has now paid the debt for his freedom. He has adopted the baby, making arrangements for her to be sent out to his wife, herself a Dutch girl, in New Zealand.
EVENING POST, 19 FEBRUARY 1945
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 23, 2020 21:35:32 GMT 12
Quite a story. I wonder if she is still around, and still in New Zealand?
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Post by davidd on May 24, 2020 12:47:53 GMT 12
Yes Dave, quite amazing really, you have to wonder!
Dave D
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Post by chinapilot on May 25, 2020 0:38:44 GMT 12
Errol might know his service record.
Easy to forget that if anybody was caught helping an airman it was execution or a concentration camp.
A quick search came up with someone that could fit the description but his wife’s maiden name wasn’t Dutch.
(Got me into going through the papers and the same edition this was in it had a mention of my late Uncle involved in an attempted swimming rescue I never knew about - thanks Dave😀)
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 25, 2020 0:50:20 GMT 12
Wow, nice find Ian!
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Post by errolmartyn on May 26, 2020 0:32:58 GMT 12
The Kiwi navigator was Flying Officer NZ425934 Owen Dallas Pratt. He and fellow Kiwi, NZ413028 William Bolton Cookson, the pilot, along with three RAAF and two RAF men all safely baled out of their 462 Squadron, RAAF Halifax III MZ296 Z5-N in the early hours of Sunday 15 October 1944. They had taken off from Driffield at 0006 hrs to raid Duisberg. The aircraft was either hit by flak or a fighter, or perhaps both.
Page 401 of Thompson’s Vol II of New Zealanders with the RAF describes Pratt’s descent over Holland:
Occasionally these grim experiences had their lighter side. When one New Zealand navigator, after baling out from his crippled Lancaster [sic], crashed through the roof of a granary in a Dutch village, the people sleeping below mistook his arrival for that of a delayed-action bomb and hastily left the building, leaving him trapped until daybreak. The navigator, Flying Officer Pratt of No. 462 Squadron, tells his story thus:
We jumped at seventeen thousand feet. There was a terrific gale at that height and I thought I should never get down as I was being blown along almost horizontally. At long last I saw a dark mass below me. Then a church steeple flashed by and I went crash through a roof. I found myself swinging by my parachute harness in inky darkness and released myself. I think I was knocked out for half an hour. When I came to it was still dark and I felt all the way round the walls and gradually realised that there was no door. I could see a glimmer of light from the hole I had made in coming through the roof and managed to climb through it to the roof top. I shouted and shouted without result for a long time, but when light finally came there must have been half the village packed into the streets below. When the police finally rescued me I found I had crashed through the roof into a loft twenty feet high with only a trap door exit in the floor.
Pratt was born in Invercargill on 12 Sep 1911 (not 1912 as Thompson has it in his footnote). Educated at Christchurch Boys’ High School during 1925-1927, he later became a Christchurch accountant. In 1938, in New Zealand, he married Enid Marion Macdonald; it seems rather unlikely that she was also Dutch as claimed in the Evening Post report. Owen and Enid resided in Christchurch post-war and in the 1963 electoral rolls they are recorded at the same address as one Adrienne Jacqueline Pratt; Owen and Enid appear in the main roll, while Adrienne is a late addition, appearing as she does in the supplementary part of the roll. If the Dutch baby was two-years old in early 1945, she would have become able to vote in 1963 – so Adrienne may well have been the baby that the newspaper report describes.
Owen Pratt served with the RNZAF from May 1942 until 25 Feb 1946. His wartime career was somewhat different from the norm. He served as an AC2 until 11 Nov 42 when he was commissioned in the Administrative & Special Duties Branch as a Pilot Officer. In June 1943 he embarked on the Matsonia for Canada and while there graduated as a navigator and, now as aircrew, was transferred to the General Duties Branch. From Canada he would have then crossed the Atlantic for Britain on attachment to the RAF, to eventually end up with 462 Squadron. He died in February 1999 and Enid four years earlier. I’ve no further details about Adrienne, however.
Cheers,
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 26, 2020 1:27:17 GMT 12
Additional to my post above, now having checked the casualty forms online via National Archives of Australian for the three RAAF members of the crew, it appears that the Evening Post account should be treated with some caution.
The Halifax was hit by flak, leading to fuel loss that resulted in the aircraft having to be abandoned over Louvain (Leuven today) about 20km east of Brussels.
On 19 October, just four days later it was officially reported by the RAAF that four of the crew (including Cookson) were already back with the squadron, one other was en route and the mid-upper-gunner along with Pratt were in hospital at Brussels.
Leuven and Brussels are quite some distance from the Dutch border, so it seems very unlikely that Pratt descended into occupied Holland. It would appear, therefore, that the family and the reported baby were Belgian rather than Dutch, and that they were not in occupied territory at the time and therefore could not have been shot by the Germans for harbouring the airman. There was certainly no escape ‘to England through the underground movement.’ One wonders, perhaps, if the reporter carried out his interview over a few beers in a pub!
Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 26, 2020 9:00:08 GMT 12
Hmm interesting. Only last month I found this and I posted it to Facebook:
MISTAKEN FOR A BOMB
PARACHUTING AIRMAN'S EXPERIENCE
(Special P.A. Correspondent,) LONDON, November 10.
It is not often that an airman is mistaken for a bomb, but when it does occur it has decided drawbacks This was experienced by Flying Officer Owen Pratt when using his Parachute at 17,000 feet. He finally crashed through the roof of a granary in a Dutch village just south of Tilburg
The miller and his family thought that a delayed action bomb had fallen and promptly evacuated their living quarters below, while people were moved out from an area of 100 yards around the building. The result was that Flying Officer Pratt's shouts for help went unheeded until daylight.
Flying Officer Pratt was the navigator in a Halifax bomber which found Itself with petrol for only three minutes' flying when nearing Tilburg. There was a gale of 70 miles an hour blowing when we jumped," he said and I thought I would never get down, for I was blown along for a long way almost horizontally. At long last I saw a dark mass below me., and then a steeple flashed past, and I went crashing through a roof. I found myself swinging by the parachute harness in inky darkness, and released myself and was knocked out for about half an hour. When I came to it was still dark, and I felt my way around the walls and gradually realised there was no door. I could see a glimmer of light coming through the hole I had made in the roof, and shouted for some time without result. When light finally came there must have been half the village packed in the streets 100 yards away. Finally police rescued me, and I found I was in a loft with only a trapdoor exit in the floor."
The Dutchman and his wife and two children were delighted to find that their midnight disturber was not a time bomb after all, and Flying Officer Pratt was soon enjoying their hospitality before being flown back to England.
EVENING POST, 11 NOVEMBER 1944
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 26, 2020 9:34:25 GMT 12
Pratt was born in Invercargill on 12 Sep 1911 (not 1912 as Thompson has it in his footnote). The Death Register has his ate of birth as 12 Sep 1912, as does his headstone, at St Peters Anglican Church, Upper Riccarton, Christchurch.  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 26, 2020 10:06:02 GMT 12
Given that he stated he jumped at 17,000 feet and was taken sideways by gale force winds, it is still possible he did end up in occupied Holland if it was blowing the right way. If the others caught the current differently they may have been more lucky.
It is also possible that because that eastern side of Belgium speak Dutch, and because he was the navigator and knew they'd been south of Tilsburg when they jumped, he assumed he was in Holland and near Tilsburg when he came down. Maybe he was in a village that had a similar name and he never realised he was not in the Netherlands?
We do not know what was actually in the note that came with the child. I wonder if it specifically said the Germans killed her parents.
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Post by errolmartyn on May 26, 2020 12:29:43 GMT 12
Pratt was born in Invercargill on 12 Sep 1911 (not 1912 as Thompson has it in his footnote). The Death Register has his ate of birth as 12 Sep 1912, as does his headstone, at St Peters Anglican Church, Upper Riccarton, Christchurch. I'm not sure what particular 'Death Register' your refer to but NZ BDM online confirms birth on 12 Sep 191 1 and this date is repeated in its own online deaths register. Errol |
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 26, 2020 12:57:10 GMT 12
That's bizarre, I just rechecked the BDM site and it does say 1911, yet this morning it quite clearly showed 1912. I double checked it at the time. I wish I had taken a screenshot!
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Post by errolmartyn on May 26, 2020 16:19:44 GMT 12
That's bizarre, I just rechecked the BDM site and it does say 1911, yet this morning it quite clearly showed 1912. I double checked it at the time. I wish I had taken a screenshot! The site was showing 1911 late yesterday and again early this afternoon when I checked. Are you perhaps suffering from Lockdownitis?! Cheers, Errol |
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 26, 2020 16:21:17 GMT 12
Hahaha maybe
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rachael
Leading Aircraftman
Posts: 1
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Post by rachael on Jul 8, 2020 15:35:51 GMT 12
I find this story very interesting as Owen is my grandfather
And I remember him telling me the story of him landing in that building .
I have asked my father about the story of my grandparents adopting
My auntie He has said he very much doubts it . However it would be a great story
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Post by errolmartyn on Jul 8, 2020 16:25:00 GMT 12
I wonder if there is any mention of the 'adoption' on his RNZAF service record.
Rachael, if you wished you could request a free copy of the this from Personnel Records, New Zealand Defence Force, though processing of a request may take a good number of months at present.
Cheers,
Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2020 18:04:05 GMT 12
Welcome Rachael, it's great to have you here. I hope we can find out more about Owen.
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